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the manhattan project
The Manhattan Project kept Gollek busy for some 15 years – the beginning of this series was in 1984 in California, on a trip along the 101 through Big Sur. His suggestion to solve batteling conflicts between nations by a simple game of chess did find varying echoes: „…an interesting artistic vision“ stated the former Foreign Minister of Germany, Hans-Dietrich Genscher and the German Ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl supported „such a way of peacefully solving conflicts“.
The name „The Manhattan Project“ was for some people disturbung: still ist was known fort he undercover branding for the atomic bomb; but Gollek choose the name fort wo reasons: 1) the silhoutteof his chess set reminds strongly to the one of Manhattan, and 2) he was inspired by the homöopathic formula „similis similibus curantur“ – meaning „to heal the same with the similar“.
Despite Gollek´s efforts to find vintage capital to promote his project, the world kept on turning: in 2001 his vision became obsolete: the fall of the World Trade Center in 09/11 started a worldwide „war against terrorism“ – and it still goes on as we all know.
What is left to the world is his photo series, the model scale 1:100 and endless letters, sketches and other memorabila. Today the whole project is a complete prove of another chapter in the never ending book called „The history of stupidity“...