Though real wild wolves have been spotted again in Germany in recent years, these creatures warn against another creeping threat: racism. “I want to start a discussion,” says Rainer Opolka, the artist behind The Wolves Are Back. “What can we do so that people don’t need to hate anymore? In Germany, it looks like racism has now become standard. I don’t want people to get used to that.”
Opolka’s wolves appear in the aftermath of a week that left Germany reeling: an axe attack on a train near Würzburg; a mass shooting in Munich; a woman killed by a machete in Reutlingen; and a bomb detonated in Ansbach. Two of the attacks – carried out by asylum seekers and since linked to Islamic State – have sparked fears that events could be exploited by right-wing groups. Since Angela Merkel welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees into Germany, attitudes towards minorities have come under the spotlight. [...]
Since 2015, the Federal Criminal Police Office – or Bundeskriminalamt – has registered 1,031 “crimes against asylum accommodation” across Germany – from offensive graffiti to 94 acts of arson. It was the arson attacks that spurred Opolka to create his wolves. “Since Thomas Hobbes, the wolf has been a symbol for the inner social conflicts of men,” says the artist. “I remain in that tradition. I want to show those conflicts and use the wolf as metaphor.”
Racism in Germany extends beyond asylum seekers, something the Brandenburg-based artist has witnessed first hand. Opolka remembers watching drunk Germans attack a Turkish man in Hamburg. “Just because he was Turkish,” he says. “That shocked me.”
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