Dysraphic City - Node Center for Curatorial Studies

Dysraphic City

Dysraphic City

Node Center for Curatorial Studies

A project by Node Center for Curatorial Studies Berlin

7 1. Introduction

Rebecca Heidenberg 15 2. Berlin in transition:

art in the public space and its policy.

Charlotte Van Buylaere 27 3. "I still have a suitcase in Berlin"

Patrícia Rosas 35 4. Berlin Territories 4:

new life in the death strip

Alex Grünenfelder 47 5. Untitled

Louis Porter with Stephanie Han 57 6. Dysraphic Site:

the space between Palast der

Republik and Stadtschloss

Masha McConaghy 73 7. raumlaborberlin Interventions

Inês Oliveira 79 8. Tempelhofer Feld

Wouter De Raeve and

Benjamin Deboosere 85 9. A trip to the Teufelsberg, likely the

most interesting mountain in Germany

Raphael Rogenmoser

93 10. Teufelsberg, a place in ruins

Patrícia Rosas 101 11. Künstlerhaus Bethanien:

an institution in flux

throughout Berlin’s history

Juliette Premmereur

Otherwise – flies, detergent whines, flimflam psychosis. Let’s: partition the petulance, roast the arrears, succor the sacred. “If you don’t keep up with culture, culture will keep up with you.” Sacral dosing, somewhat hosting.

1 Introduction Rebecca Heidenberg

Introduction

‘Dysraphism’ is actually a word in use by specialists in congenital diseases, to mean dysfunctional fusion of embryonic parts….

‘Raph’ of course means ‘seam,’ so for me dysraphism is mis-seaming – a prosodic device!

But it has the punch of being the same root of rhapsody (rhaph) – or in Skeats – “one who strings (lit. stitches) songs together, a reciter of epic poetry,” cf. “ode” etc. In any case, to be simple, Dorland’s [the standard U.S. medical dictionary] does define ‘dysrhafia’ (if not dysraphism) as ‘incomplete closure of the primary neural tube; status dysraphicus’; this is just below ‘dysprosody’ (sic): ‘disturbance of stress, pitch, and rhythm of speech.'1 Dysraphic City is a publication produced in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name at Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien. Both were developed during a three month residency by the eight international summer 2013 residents of Node Center for Curatorial Studies. We have repurposed the term “dysraphism”, borrowed from Charles Bernstein’s poem Dysraphism (1987), and applied it to a publication and exhibition which deal with impressions of a transitional Berlin.

The framework insists on a reading of the city through moments of disjuncture, revealing defective or incomplete seams within the urban landscape. It is in these sites of discontinuity, where the urban landscape appears as a cinematic jump cut, that the city truly exposes itself.

8

Rebecca Heidenberg

Charles Bernstein’s poem Dysraphism is a key work of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetics. The magazine of the same name, edited by Charles Bernstein and Bruce Andrews, published in New York between 1978 and 1981, was a breeding ground for a diverse group of writers known as the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets.

Their writing opened up new possibilities for poetry in which language and its devices are exposed to create meaning. Parataxis, the juxtaposition of syntactic units without use of a conjunction, is one important device in their writing. They build meaning by using the characteristics of language itself, such as fragmentation, sound, rhythm, or structural constraints. Generally, they avoid linear composition, applying Walter Benjamin’s concept of critical constellation over linear progress.

Appropriation as a device is employed throughout Dysraphism, often deliberately inaccurately. For example, one fragment reads “Endless strummer," a play on the title of the film Endless Summer produced in 1968. By appropriating a text while at the same time recomposing it, Bernstein alludes to the reference while simultaneously destroying it. This device is also at play within several architectural sites in Berlin. At Palast der Republik for example, the building plans appropriate the façade of the 15th century Stadtschloss and affix it to a modern building. The site once housed the GDR’s parliament and served as a cultural center, containing many positive memories for residents of East Berlin which generated heated debate concerning its preservation and demolition for years, as is the case for many historical sites in the 9

Introduction

city. Whether left in ruins, demolished, buried or reconstructed, Berlin’s sites juxtapose loaded strata of meaning.

The Schwerbelastungskörper (Heavy Load-Bearing Body) was declared a protected monument in 1995.

The twelve thousand ton solid concrete cylindrical form, built under the direction of Albert Speer in 1941, was constructed to test the load-bearing capacity of the site in preparation for building a planned gigantic triumphal arch. Over the years, it transitioned from an emblem of the Nazis’ megalomaniac vision of Berlin’s future, to an incongruous site in a residential neighborhood and finally to the monument that stands today. Yet through each transition, it remained the same unmovable structure. The site however, accumulated layers of meaning through its shifting assimilation into the city.

Parataxis, as applied to architecture, where disjuncture is exposed, is inevitable even where parts are literally buried. Trümmerberge (rubble mountains) were transformed into parklands all over Berlin, mostly burying mounds of WWII debris. While the parks have become integral to the social fabric of the city, their contents remain present even while buried. Teufelsberg, discussed in depth in this publication, is perhaps one of the most photographed Trümmer-berge in the city as a result of its layered histories. Once slated to become a luxury condominium, it is now open for tourists even while it remains in debt and shrouded in uncertainty.

In discussing the aims of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, Bernstein writes “The poem was imagined not 10

Rebecca Heidenberg

as the fixed voice of a self-contained ego conveying a predetermined, or paraphrasable, message but a collage or constellation of textual elements: not voice, but voicings.”2 Projecting this method on to a reading of a Berlin, the city can be understood through its constellations of histories manifested as complex voicings. The disjointed syntax of architectural elements which contain divergent histories and memories generate visceral transitions in the urban landscape.

Dysraphic City and the accompanying exhibition explore these sites of exposed transition. While there are neighborhoods such as Prenzlauerberg, which transformed in less than two decades from communist workers’ district to ragged bohemian playground to posh family enclave, Berlin remains characterized by the feeling that it is, perhaps permanently, unfinished. Hans Stimmann, the city’s first building director after the fall of the Berlin Wall, adhered to the principle of “critical reconstruction”. Accused of demolishing all traces of postwar architectural history, he imagined an ordered city which would reflect the neo-Classicism of Berlin’s 19th century architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Although responsible for quickly converting many sites in the city, including Potsdamer Platz, the city remains a collage built of ruins, 19th century appropriations, Modernist buildings and Socialist architecture, all existing side-by-side and reflecting a diverse population with varying memories inextricably bound to its sites.

In this publication, we are not attempting a thorough analysis of this complex city, but rather intending to 11

Introduction

produce an impression, in a moment of time, through the lens of eight curious curators enthralled by a city we’ve come to understand as dysraphic.

1

2

Bernstein, Charles. ‘Dysraphism’.

The Sophist. Charles Bernstein and Ron Silliman. Los Angeles: Salt Publishing, 1987. Print.

Bernstein, Charles. ‘The Expanded Field of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E’. The Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature.

Ed. Joe Bray, Alison Gibbons, Brian McHale.

Routledge, 2012. Print.

12

“Fill the water glasses – ask each person if they would like more coffee, etc.” Content’s dream. The journey is far, the rewards inconsequential.

2 Berlin in transition: art in the public space and its policy Charlotte Van Buylaere

Berlin in transition

Interview with Stéphane Bauer, Director of Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien by Charlotte Van Buylaere.

Charlotte Van Buylaere: You were born in France, how did you end up in Berlin?

Stéphane Bauer: It was mostly by chance that I came to Berlin. I attended studies in Bonn and even before I went to French and German schools. But when my former girlfriend decided to move to Berlin, I followed her and finished my studies here.

I arrived three years before the wall came down and at that time, West Berlin was like an island. It was a very harsh city. It was not my favourite place to stay. If there hadn’t been love involved, I would have gone to Hamburg I think.

So it was a love story?

Yes, it was. But then Berlin became my love story.

Also because of the fall of the wall, then it became a totally new situation for us here.

It must have been a really exciting period I guess.

It was really nice to be young at that time in Berlin.

How did you experience the developments in Kreuzberg and Kunstquartier Bethanien?

It was an interesting time, because when the wall came down, which was really next to Mariannenplatz, the focus was mainly on the Eastern part of the city.

So Western institutions were not in the focus and soon other institutions like Kunst-Werke in Mitte became very important. The challenge was to be with the changes and to follow them also. In the beginning there were a lot of false expectations. For example, 16

Charlotte Van Buylaere

that the population in Berlin would rapidly grow, which didn’t happen. In a certain way, the process can be described as a process of normalization. And Berlin became a normal city in the last twenty years.

So you consider this to be a slow process?

In some way yes, I do.

It’s difficult to say because it is a process and there are huge changes…

Yes, because to me it looks like it went really fast.

Yes, but twenty years is a long period.

And still, as you can see in the current exhibition in Kunstraum Kreuzberg [Wir sind hier nicht zum Spass!], between 1993 and now 2013, the changes are not that big. It’s still the same process that goes on.

The difference was bigger in the times before, when there was a real cutting line. At the fall of the wall and the reunification of Eastern and Western Germany to one state.

Also culturally I think there are bigger gaps between the end of the ‘60s, ‘70s, end of the ‘80s and now.

Those were really three major gaps. But now it’s still ongoing. The DJs who were not well known at the beginning of the ’90s, have become known now but are still playing at Tresor and Berghain.

In the latest exhibition Wir sind hier nicht zum Spass! I experienced a rather negative feeling about the evolution of the artistic scene in Berlin. There’s a lot of nostalgia involved by looking back to the ‘90s.

Yes, well, there was a very nice article on the Berlin Art Link website where they were criticising us for this point and I liked the article because it raises a lot of 17

Berlin in transition

questions… I don’t know, I won’t agree but in a certain way I can understand this critique.

But some things are highly ironic, for example all the vitrines could be read as a form of nostalgia. But it was more from an ironic approach that we’ve put them there.

What I tried to explain in my article in the catalogue was the change of economics, the economic reasons why it worked that well in that time: you had empty spaces but they were run without any funding, based on informal structures and a lot more freedom.

For example, we had no taxes to pay on the beer we served, no one cared about the noise nuisance, no one cared about money aspects… There was a very collective spirit, whether you produced art or music, everybody was at the same level. So in these terms it was less capitalized, and of course it was kind of a utopia but in the same way it also prepared for the changes and the gentrification.

Exactly, and I think you can’t avoid that when you have started a gentrification process, at a certain point the gentrification takes over and moves on by itself.

Yes, but I’m wondering what could have been an alternative. After the wall came down, we hoped that the DDR would turn into in a democratic socialist state.

Kind of a third way to install democratic socialism.

But at the elections of March 1990 the majority of the East German people voted CDU. And that means?

That means they voted for re-unification. That means they voted for common currency. That means they voted 18

Charlotte Van Buylaere

for the common capitalist system. And I remember the night of the election, that I went to all these Eastern parties and I ended the night in the club Eimar at Schönhauser Allee (the club doesn’t exist anymore, it’s in one of the photographs in the exhibition), it was one of the very few East-German squats. When I was there and watched all the people dancing I felt very sad because I knew, due to the results of reunification that this wouldn’t go on very long. So I think there was a very small hope but in the same way a massive reunification.

So were you against the reunification?

To be honest, when the wall came down in 1989, two or three days later I participated in a manifestation on Kurfürstendamm that was organised to calm down the people and avoid rash decisions. We pleaded to wait patiently for a proposal from the DDR people and not to force anything. We hoped they would reform he DDR as a more democratic state, but weren’t such fans of the rash reunification that Helmut Kohl wanted.

So do you think that there is a large amount of people who would have preferred that the wall stayed?

Not the wall but…

The two countries…

The two countries or two systems at least. I think that would have been very interesting, if there was an economic basis for that. So in a way it was a rude awakening. From this perspective you could say that all these utopias in all these clubs in the ‘90s were kind of an escape. And of course we knew that we were playing on ground that wouldn’t be stable for very long.

19

Berlin in transition

Now, I understand better where this rather nostalgic state of mind in the exhibition comes from… The rather small playground became one of Europe’s biggest international art metropolises. As a member of the Arts Council, how does the Council deal with this fact? Are they inspired by it? Is there a dialogue between those international artists and the Council?

Well, I hope so! The Arts Council consists of 20 people, selected from more than 300 people every two years. In the commission there is a very wide range of people coming from all different disciplines in the arts sector. I hope that we can connect to these artistic approaches of the city. But I think the main problem we have to deal with, and especially in visual art, is that politicians assume that the scene can function autonomously because everything is going so well at the moment. I think that this neglectful attitude will – in the end – destroy the basis of the richness and attractiveness of the Berlin art scene. If we don’t stay aware of the fertile mixture between informal structures and institutionalized situations, and if the city doesn’t keep some buildings for art and artists’ studios, Berlin will lose a lot of its attractiveness.

What is the city’s main standpoint towards art in the public space?

That’s a very important point. I think we have to be aware – again – of the commercialization of the public space. So for example we, as the Arts Council are very against the use of the August Bebelplatz – (where you have the Mischa Ullman Book Burning Memorial) – as a place for the catwalk in fashion week. We always 20

Charlotte Van Buylaere

try to force the city to put it somewhere else. That’s one example.

Another thing is to keep spaces for changing projects and new venues and not to have too many sculptures installed.

Well, I noticed that there isn’t very much fixed contemporary art in public space here. Do you work with creation assignments for artists in the public space?

We do, but the problem is that it costs a lot of money which we don’t have. For example there is 0.5 to 1% of public building that needs to be spent on public art.

But in Friedrichshain–Kreuzberg we work mostly in collaboration with schools.

In general, most money for public art goes to Gedenkkultur (“commemorative culture”).

And for conservation of the already existing sculptures?

No, this is also a big problem. There is no money for that.

Is this a unique situation to Berlin, or is it according to the government policy of the country?

No, there are some German cities that do interesting projects in public spaces. Hamburg has a very interesting public space program. And Munich. These two cities are pioneers in Germany of public art policy. In the ‘80s there was a renewal of the discussion of public art in Germany. But this was mainly reflected in Hamburg, Munich and of course Münster where you have Skulptur Projekte Münster every ten years.

21

Berlin in transition

And what about the policy regarding street art and graffiti?

Well in Berlin terms, the wall is of course the biggest and most famous graffiti-work of the entire city. The wall belonged to the DDR. You could approach it, but when you were near the wall, you were in fact on DDR ground. So Western police couldn’t do anything.

They could even watch you painting the graffiti, but weren’t allowed to rebuke you. And of course the DDR didn’t charge the people for painting their wall. So this fact caused a very long tradition of graffiti in Berlin.

So at first, only the west side of the wall was painted?

Yes of course, and this is also a common historical mistake of East Side Gallery. The East side artists started to paint the wall after it came down.

Their purpose was to save the wall in a certain way, but also to have a project where they could present their paintings. I think the discussion about this is quite hysterical at the moment.

Why? Well, you know, public art is there to change and to fade away and also to be renewed. And I think it’s really absurd to spend so much money. The restoration of East Side Gallery cost 2 or 3 million euros. With this money I could run the Kunstraum [Kreuzberg / Bethanien] for 20 years. And it’s just a touristic thing. Most of these paintings aren’t the best paintings either.

It was very interesting to see when they restored the wall a few artists didn’t want to repaint their works from 20 years ago. The people who where in charge of the 22

Charlotte Van Buylaere

restoration, didn't allow them to make another work.

So in several parts of the East Side Gallery you have parts which are not renewed. I think this shows the whole absurdity of it, for me I would say "make this wall free and use it!"

But then a part of the history will be lost?

Everything is history.

Yes but the wall is probably the most touristic attraction of Berlin. The city earns a lot of money from this.

But to preserve, to clean away all the graffiti on the East Side Gallery would cost like 70,000 euro a year, that’s absurd!

And what about the rest of Berlin and its policy towards graffiti? Is it allowed?

No, it’s not allowed. Even worse, there were associations like NO FITTI which were supported by the mayor of Berlin and the Minister of the Interior.

They even refused to support youth centers that organize legal graffiti workshops. In 2003 we were one of the first who made a big exhibition of street art and its relatives. We were harshly attacked for that.

Headlines appeared in the newspapers like “Big scandal: public money spent on graffiti, inviting street artists to destroy the city”.

But at the same time the city shows pictures of graffiti in their tourist leaflets.

If we speak about Berlin in terms of an unfinished city, how do you look at the future with regard to the development of the art scene?

Or maybe I should ask if you consider Berlin as an unfinished city?

23

Title

Yes, I consider Berlin still an unfinished city. Berlin was from 1945 an unfinished city and the city redefined itself after the big gap the second World War left.

And it is still undefined or unfinished and the process will go on for many more years which is good. But in the end this process looks more and more like a process of normalization. The role of art is very important, and it already gave the undefined city a certain soul. But I hope it’s not only going to be cultural industry hipness but real research in terms of society.

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If you mix with him you’re mixing with a metaphor. “It’s a realistic package, it’s a negotiable package, it’s not a final package.” Glibness of the overall, maybe: there is always something dripping through.

3 "I still have a suitcase in Berlin" PatrĂ­cia Rosas

"I still have a suitcase in Berlin"

“I still have a suitcase in Berlin,” said Ronald Reagan during his 1987 famous Tear Down This Wall! speech, at the Brandenburg Tor, with the goal to call on Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall. Ronald Reagan tried to re-create John Kennedy’s memorable statement: “I take pride in the words: ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’” by alluding to Marlene Dietrich’s song Ich hab noch einen Koffer in Berlin (“I still have a suitcase in Berlin”).

The song is about a suitcase full of pleasures and memories of days gone by in Berlin, as highlighted in the refrain: I still have a suitcase in Berlin That’s why I have to go there sometime soon.

The joys of days gone by Are all still in my little suitcase.

I still have a suitcase in Berlin It stays there, too, and that makes sense.

In this way it’s worth a trip, Because whenever I’m homesick, then I go back.1 As in Marlene Dietrich’s song, the film The Mirror Suitcase Man by Rui Calçada Bastos depicts a suitcase as simultaneously a travel object and a container of memory, used to symbolize and transport relevant moments for him, which I will discuss further on.

In the long time between Dietrich’s song, written pre-Berlin Wall in 1951, and Reagan’s repetition of it, 28

Patrícia Rosas

Berliners had to learn not only how to live but how to think in terms of a divided city, a divided world.

One of the best ways to understand and love Berlin is to think of it as a city undergoing permanent transformation as portrayed in, for example, Wim Wenders’ film Der Himmel über Berlin (English title, Wings of Desire) first presented in 1987. In this film, an old man has trouble finding his way to the old Postdamer Platz.

In the past, the square was the border between the Russian and American military sectors, and a meeting point between the Western Allies and the Soviets. The old man could not relate to the huge empty wasteland that still physically divided the city in two – as it is shown in the film – nor, I imagine, could he relate to Postdamer Platz as it is today: a central economic and commercial hub, for Berliners and tourists. 2 Wim Wenders also highlights reinvention as the key to living in a city divided in two when he depicts the fall of an angel in front of the Wall as a consequence of wandering through the streets of the city listening the Berliners’ thoughts. It is a tradeoff: with the loss of his immortality Wenders’ angel acquires a new vision of the city from ground level and with a human perspective.

In the recent film Oh Boy! (2012), by Jan Ole Gerster, its main characters wander through the streets of the city and this reveals itself again to be the best way ►

Rui Calçada Bastos The Mirror Suitcase Man 2004 (video still) super 8 film transferred to DVD, Pal, B / W, 4ʹ20ʺ sound by Tiago Miranda

29

"I still have a suitcase in Berlin"

of relating to it. This exercise establishes a strong connection between the private sphere – the temporarily lost individual – and the "found" public space. Berliners or foreigners (with their suitcases) can discover or rediscover the city if they surrender to its urban spaces as those that have been reshaped throughout history.

The suitcase mirrors the city Rui Calçada Bastos has lived in Berlin since 2003.

In 2004, the artist left his artist residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien and decided to stay in Berlin.

In this first year, he explored the city and the people of Berlin on foot in his super-8 film, The Mirror Suitcase Man. The other videos that Calçada Bastos made in the same year – Studio Contents or Left (L)overs – are pieces which represent the idea of a memory of objects and feelings, that the artist transports with him or inside him. His works are a self-representation containing a highly personal biographical background.

The Mirror Suitcase Man focuses our attention on the object of the suitcase, made from mirror carried by an anonymous man. It frames and reflects the city of Berlin and its people, the landscape gardens, the trains and the streets. Calçada Bastos reinvents the city using the reflection in the mirror: it’s a city in flux, an inside and an outside space, as for example, the solitary woman standing in the metro alone with her thoughts, just waiting to get to a final destination.

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Patrícia Rosas

The transitional, and physical passage within the urban space is also a metaphor for a reflection of memory: running imagery in The Mirror Suitcase Man is traced in cars, trees, public transport. The parks in Berlin are also reflected in the mirror, representing daily life, we can admire the Spree, and see the Künstlerhaus Bethanien at the end of a street. We only see his mirror, the outside (but also symbolically the inside) of the suitcase. And this suitcase represents travels, in this case, a walk in Berlin, an unfinished city. This is a less stressful city compared to Paris, London or New York, as sung by Dietrich. In the end, the suitcase will travel again, but in other hands, on a different walk, a dissimilar travel in another “dysraphic city.”

The slow framing of the characters captured in the suitcase’s reflection and the man without a face carrying the suitcase refers to the film noir genre. They particularly remind me of the Cold War movie Kiss Me Deadly (1955) in which a glowing suitcase, also of undisclosed content, reflected the characters’ fear of an imminent threat and their doubts about their – and mankind’s – destiny.

The “wandering” visually documents the collective memory of the city itself. This allusion to collective memory is echoed in the soundtrack, which creates a mysterious environment, seemingly disconnected from the black and white moving image: the sound of a typewriter, static, a man whispering French words, the sound of a church organ. These all give a nostalgic and solitary atmosphere to the film.

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"I still have a suitcase in Berlin"

The French anthropologist Marc Augé examines his concept of “non-places.” 3 These are contemporary places of transience, where each person is alone, and acts alone; where there is a lack of place and memory, or enough experience for the place to be considered significant. These non-places included in The Mirror Suitcase Man can be: bus doors that closed, metro station platforms, passing cars, the empty bench in the park. They always induce a state of being “between” something. They are the entrances and exits where gods and citizens meet, people have encounters and unencounters, where history is made, like a mirror in a suitcase.

1

2

3

Lyrics by Aldo von Pinelli; music by Ralph Maria Siegel, and literal prose English translation by Hyde Flippo, 1951.

Hadju, Joseph. Berlin Today.

Berlin: Berlin Story Verlag, 2010. Print.

Augé, Marc. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London and New York: Verso, 1995. Print.

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4 Berlin Territories 4: new life in the death strip Alex Gr端nenfelder

Berlin Territories 4

One thing that people sometimes don’t realize is that the Berlin wall was surrounded by a defensive perimeter which was progressively enlarged and fortified throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s until it was absolutely enormous and occupied an almost inconceivable surface area. The wall was 155km long and at any point along it, the defensive perimeter was between 20 meters and 2.5 kilometers wide (usually about 100 meters). Within this area all buildings were razed, guard towers were erected, and two sentries were posted every 200 meters. It was called the “death strip” because the East German guards would shoot anyone who attempted to pass through this zone and escape into West Berlin.

On 9 November 1989 the border was opened to travel and on 13 June 1990, the official dismantling of the Wall by the East German military began. Only a few short sections and watchtowers were left standing as memorials. This resulted in a huge empty strip in the city’s urban fabric, a physical gap that mirrored a psychological and social disjunction between East and West. Martin Earl describes his fascination with these spaces: What is a "Wallist"? This is a term I devised for someone (namely myself) who was obsessed, not with the wall, since it was no longer there, but with the space left in its wake — at the time a sandy, weed-cluttered corridor. In 1992, it was still possible to follow the ‘death strip’ left by the dismantling, a process which was just being completed when I made my first trip to Berlin.

36

Alex Grünenfelder

As you walked along, West Berlin was on the right, and East Berlin on the left (or vice versa, depending on which direction you took).

These were two distinctly different worlds in terms of architecture, mood, and what photographers call "grayscale"… This ghost strip was, for me, a place of the imagination, a nullity so rife with the echoes of postwar history that the air seemed to crackle in distress...

Having watched the events of 1989 on television, far away in Portugal, the toppling of the GDR had remained somewhat abstract to me. Now that I was in situ the negated enormity of the obliterated wall began to whisper. …The city was, of course, still divided. The Germans had a name for this: Mauer im Kopf, which means ‘the wall in the head.’ This division was glaringly visible.1 For many years after reunification, people in Germany talked about cultural differences between East and West Germans (colloquially Ossis and Wessis).

A September 2004 poll found that 25 percent of West Germans and 12 percent of East Germans wished that East and West should be separated again by a “Wall.” 2 A poll taken in October 2009 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall indicated, however, that only about a tenth of the population was still unhappy with the unification (8 percent in the East; 12 percent in the West). Although differences are still perceived between East and West, Germans make similar distinctions between North and South.3 37

Berlin Territories 4

A New Life The vacant space of no man’s land in the former death strip offered an unusual kind of urban tabula rasa for experimentation. Various squatter wagon camps can still be seen along its path. One of the most notable such experiments is a community known as Lohmühle which was feature in a 2009 program by Public Radio International: Today, parts of the former no man’s land along the iron curtain have come back to life in unexpected ways. In one community, nestled into the former militarized zone of the Berlin Wall, people are redefining sustainable urban living.

“I think squatting always has been, the aspect of taking care of the place and not just going in there and saying okay, we’ll be here for a bit until the roof comes down and then we’ll squat something else,” said Piers Ewing, a resident.

Ewing stands near a large dome-shaped structure made of plywood and particleboard.

“It used to be a greenhouse in its former life and was built into a multi-use sort of stage and café building. So we are one of the few trailer parks that actually do things all year through"…

Since 1991 the squatters of Lohmühle have worked to bring this dead strip along the Berlin Wall back to life. The city of Berlin has granted the squatters a permit to stay here because 38

Alex Grünenfelder

The Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, November 1975 looking southeastwards into Stresemannstraße. Image courtesy of Edward Valachovic.

they are improving the landscape while educating the public about low-impact living...

“This space used to be totally barren sand with weed killers, and now nature has reclaimed this space and what their experiment is is to cooperate with nature,” said Anna Grichting, an architect who has been studying planning and sustainable development in Berlin since the Wall came down...

She sees this community as a prime example of how people repurpose the no man’s lands created by international conflict. “It’s interesting because it’s a laboratory of ecological planning in these in between spaces. And I think 39

Berlin Territories 4

it’s not only from the nature but also these new communities or new ways of living that emerge from these spaces.”

Piers Ewing doesn’t see himself as a lab rat, or even an ecological planner. But he agrees that without the Berlin Wall, there could never have been a place like Lohmühle. In the chaos that followed the Wall coming down, the government didn’t have the resources to squelch the creative energy that spawned this community.

“With the fall of the Wall there was so much space and even if they didn’t like it, they just couldn’t keep up with like getting everything paved and building fancy new places,” said Ewing.“ It just couldn’t keep up so it was pretty easy to get things going and get a long-term perspective. Yeah it’s getting harder, but it’s still Berlin and it’s not London or Paris or someplace like this.”

For Ewing, Lohmühle is a patch of wildness in the urban environment, but it also represents a unique opportunity to live life a little bit on the wild side, outside of the rat race. …

Among all the grand public buildings that have sprung up where the wall once split the city, Lohmühle represents an alternative approach to rebuilding after troubled times, and a new take on modern urban life.4 In their article Space in Dialogue, Kenneth A. Balfelt and Lasse Lau describe how the residents of 40

Alex Grünenfelder

Lohmühle foster a very active relationship with their surrounding community.

After the Berlin wall was demolished, a few people parked their house-wagons and occupied a small strip of the old "no mans land" in Treptow Berlin. They started to develop the land from a dessert into a green and livable small community. There where several of these communities, which typically originated from squatter environments, that Berlin tends to be famous for. The idea to produce social spaces was a natural development for the residents of Lohmühle, and they also knew that they would gain from the established network and connection with the outside. Partly because of the illegal squatting, they knew that if they had to maintain the space they had to communicate with their neighbors and offer them something unique.

Lohmühle residents decided to make an area of the community space public by building scaffolding spaces that presented an open indoor space and cafe, Kanzler Amt, as well as a workshop and gallery named La Fabrica Lohmühle. They invited their neighbors to participate. In addition to the physical spaces they created, the residents also made a range of cultural and ecological events that were open for all citizens of Berlin. By meeting their neighbors in a dialogue and engaging and participating in events, Lohmühle developed 41

Berlin Territories 4

a common, positive relationship of dependency.

The next step for Lohmühle, and the reason they took the name Gesamtkunstwerk Wagendorf Lohmühle, is to get acknowledgement for their public space as a cultural site of importance for the city. They are also trying to keep their communication going by publishing a book about their ideas and findings. Lohmühle is an open and social space where readings are fluent and where the definitions of the space are still ongoing and where an illegal beginning with dialogue may turn legal.5 The Death Strip as Social Space Balfelt and Lau draw an interesting contrast between public space and social space.

"Public" is from the beginning a confusing term, that in connection with space, has created a myth of ownership by everyone. A ‘public space’ is really not a free space and has always been a space of territorial nature. No matter if the space is actually owned by private companies or limited by a majority’s morality and control. The space is not entirely for everyone...

So if the targeting of space either repulses or attracts, includes or excludes, the question becomes: what then can make a public space 42

Alex Grünenfelder

public? The meeting, and especially the possibility of meeting people who are not alike, is essential and a critical factor for making a public space into a social space. Direct meeting and dialogue are essential in all human relations and can solve numerous potential conflicts and can help us reach a larger understanding of ourselves and of others...

[S]ocial space is not a utopia that can solve every problem of a society divided by class that often is socially and physically segregated.

But space can – if we pursue it like Fusion and Lohmühle does – minimize the gaps that prevent people from communicating.

According to Balfelt and Lau projects like Lohmühle perform the valuable work of turning public space into social space.

It’s an odd paradox of our cities that public space — space that is publicly owned — is often not open or accessible to the public. Most cities have many vacant public buildings and properties that are physically secured against public entry — fenced off, boarded up, or even patrolled by guards. Berlin’s former death strip actually represents one of the few existing urban commons, an open space that can be used by anyone. After existing for decades as a forbidden zone guarded under the strictest protocols it suddenly became one of the freest spaces in the world.

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Berlin Territories 4

This article is part of Berlin Territories, a five part series of articles published on wordsandpictures.info 11 April 2010. Alex Grünenfelder is an artist and designer based in Vancouver, Canada.

1 Earl, Martin. ‘Writing on Stone’. Poetry Foundation. 6 May 2009. Web. 01 April 2010.

2 Reuters. ‘One in 5 Germans wants Berlin Wall rebuilt’. MSNBC.

8 September 2004. Web. 3 ZDF. ‘Große Zustimmung zur Wiedervereinigung’. Wochenjournal.

5 November 2009. Web. 4 ‘Berlin Wall squatters’. Public Radio International. 09 November 2009. Radio.

5 Balfelt, Kenneth A. and Lau, Lassi. ‘Space in

Dialogue: Memories from a project related

to public space’. HTV#52. The Netherlands.

Print.

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Morose or comatose. “Life is what you find, existence is what you repudiate.�

5 Untitled Louis Porter with Stephanie Han

Untitled

Absence has a presence.

Louis Porter’s untitled work expresses the physical and imagined gaps that exist between the historical sites of Berlin and the present. He examines the debris, the empty spaces and the left over remnants of the Wall that still hold such potency and form markers of these historically loaded areas.

The series include photographs taken from Porter’s walk along the 155km circuit around what was once West Berlin. Described as a ‘poetry of absence’, the series incorporates resonant objects found along this stretch.

The work entwines found photographs from flea market stalls, of truncated figures and a gaze focussed outside the picture frame. By appropriating these curious images, Porter provides a vicarious and intimate dimension to the narrative in his series.

Untitled is part of a larger body of work developed during his residency at Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK / U), Berlin, 2013.

This project is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria.

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Very busy by now reorganizing and actually, oddly, added into fractionation ratio, as you might say. Or just hitting against, back to everybody.

Reality is always greener when you haven’t seen her.

6 Dysraphic Site: the space between Palast der Republik and Stadtschloss Masha McConaghy

Dysraphic Site

Dysraphism is a medical term characterizing a split in the spinal column, a defective seam or rupture between two parts of the same organ. Surgical intervention is needed for treatment. Berlin can be considered a “Dysraphic City” – a city with a dysraphic history. The city experienced ruptures of both the body and memory through the arc of its 20th century history: World War I, then the Nazis, then the division of the city into East and West Berlin. With each rupture and especially since the fall of the Wall, this Dysraphic City, with its divided body and memory, continually aims to heal and reinvent itself. Architecture is usually the means: Berlin is constantly trying to restore itself through never-ending construction – not only of the urban landscape, but also of the collective memory. It has been constantly a city in transition, always unfinished, always undergoing surgery.

These very properties make Berlin attractive to artists.

While opinion is divided on whether this surgery has helped, Berlin is undeniably dysraphic.

There is one particularly significant location that signifies the tears in Berlin’s physical and psychological landscape. This is the site that once housed the East German government, and going further back, the Prussian Dynasty. On that site, the Stadtschloss (“Berlin City Palace”) was first constructed in the 15th century. It was rebuilt in the 18th century and transformed into the residence of the Hohenzollern Dynasty. The Schloss, with its ornate Baroque architecture, had been a symbol of Prussia ever since. In 1945, at the end of WWII, it was badly damaged. In 1950, it was demolished on the instructions of East 58

Masha McConaghy

German Government (GDR).

The Palast der Republik (“Palace of the Republic”) was built at that site. The Palast combined under its roof not only East German parliament but also a clutch of restaurants, theaters, art galleries and bowling alleys. Some considered this space as a mental escape from the chore of Communist life.

After the Wall fell, it became a site for Berlin’s cultural events, and as I will describe in detail later, emerged as a major influence on the art community. Starting in 2006, the Palast was demolished, to make way for the reconstruction of the Schloss. The idea was to “heal the wounds” as Peter Ramsauer, the cabinet minister responsible for construction, said. These changes have generated innumerable heated debates and political disagreements over the past decades, giving the site distinction as the city’s most-conversed physical location.

This essay does not aim to provide another opinion. Rather, what fascinated me is the site itself: its complex and controversial architecture, the physical location that is packed with personal and collective memories, as well as its convoluted history.

I will focus on both: the physical space while it was in its state of flux, how it became a “space in-between” in the art theory sense and on the “idea-space,” the space that the artists created by their body of works based on the dysraphic site of the Palast. I will describe how the Palast der Republik building, while in decay, functioned effectively as an alternative autonomous cultural and art space. Furthermore, I will discuss how this transitional site inspired artists during 59

Dysraphic Site

those physical-flux days. Despite the demolition of the Palast building, the “Palast-in-flux” continues to inspire artists. I would like to suggest that in addition to creating a third physical space it also created an additional “idea-space”. The “idea-space” is a space that exists in the collective consciousness of the art community and the public at large, and incorporates all the artworks produced by the artists based on the Palast site in flux.

The Palast der Republik emerged as an influential cultural and art space from 1990 to 2006, despite no formal planning for this to happen. The Palast finished its function as a Parliament of the GDR in 1990.

The demolition took place in 2006 and was finished by 2008. For 16 years, the building itself and the site of the former Stadtschloss were transformed, intentionally and unintentionally, into a “place in-between” architecturally, politically, socially and ideologically. Moreover, between the years of 2002 and 2006 the building functioned as a temporary space for exhibitions, art installations and theatrical performances. In essence, this undefined “space in-between” of Palast der Republik and Stadtschloss, became a “third” space, with its own autonomic purpose and properties.

Many philosophers and researchers have defined the notion of “space” and especially the concept of in-between.1 For this essay I use the definition provided by Ana Luz in her article Places In-Between: The Transit(ional) Locations of Nomadic Narratives.

In that article, she defines the space in-between being the space on its own. According to Luz, “both liminal 60

Larissa Fassler Onsite drawing 1 (research documentation for Schloßplatz) 2013 drawing on paper 29.7 × 42 cm

benandsebastian city of the (re)orientated (detail) 2007 assorted woods, plaster, cardboard 70 × 90 × 110cm

Søren Lose Phantasmagorie "Monument" 2009 b / w pigment ink-jet print 160 × 110cm

Dysraphic Site

and in-between refer to the transitional state between two phenomena. Spatially speaking, the position of the in-between implies a middle location between two events and opposed spaces, for instance: between in and out, here and there, this and that (sides)." Luz suggests the occurrence of a third physical position.

For her, the “concept of in-betweenness is considered a natural process of place-making, since the in-between [is] an entity per se, a bodily position linking the first space of origin or departure to the second space of arrival .” 2 The “space in-between” of Palast der Republik operated as an independent entity defined by its inhabitants. It was transformed into a public space par excellence with new function and new public. During those years of transition, the space of the Palast der Republik, while being in flux, produced a new space that offered new possibilities and possessed new properties. Called Volkspalast (People’s Palace), it hosted multiple cultural events, and was visited by more than 300 thousand people in those years.

The Volkspalast introduced a wide range of cultural activities, such as the World Break Dance Championship and the concert by Berlin rock band Einstuerzende Neubauten (translated as “Collapsing New Buildings”). Among the cultural activities, it hosted an impressive array of art installations and events. I will now describe a few of these.

In September 2004, Peanutz Architecten and raumlaborberlin created an installation that turned the building’s interior into a great lake: “visitors could move through this Republic of the Facades with rubber 64

Masha McConaghy

boats, accompanied by tourist-guides, they could become active, changing rules in the parliament, discuss certain facades in the academy, visit a course at the Gondolieri-school, get a license to conduct a taxi-boat, or just see the red light district, close to the harbor .”3 Also on the site of this controversial building, raumlaborberlin installed an interactive sculptural installation of a mountain 44 metres high entitled Der Berg. “The mountain showed that even a rough concrete ruin can become home to people, their past and their dreams. Its size, grace and speed, along with the countless installations, performances and record numbers of visitors to it, caused a great storm within the political debate .”4 From January to May 2005, the Norwegian artist Lars Ramberg transformed the Palast der Republik into Palast des Zweifels (“Palace of Doubt”). He installed six-meter high luminous letters that formed the word ZWEIFEL (DOUBT) on the roof of the palace.

In December 2005, a group of artists directed

by Coco Kuhn, Constance Kleiner and White Cube Berlin, used the Palast der Republik as a Kunsthalle (“art and exhibition hall”). 36 artists, all working and living in Berlin participated in the exhibition entitled 36 × 27 × 10 after the metrical dimensions of the Palast. The exhibition and its artists started the long lasting debates regarding the use of the building as a large-scale space for a new Kunsthalle in Berlin.

As a result, the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin opened its doors from September 2008 through August 2010.

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Dysraphic Site

For two years, this temporary exhibition space, situated at the Schlossplatz just across from the former Palast der Republik, hosted seventeen art shows and more than a hundred accompanying events, educational programs, film screenings, concerts and more.5 These events were not without their share of controversy. Following the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, a number of Berlin-based artist and cultural workers rallied against the need for another state museum for contemporary art. They argued that instead, the government should support “free cultural producers, the independent project spaces and venues, which contribute significantly to Berlin’s image as a diverse and innovative center for art and culture.” 6 This additional state of “in-between”, this third space according to Ana Luz, has left a profound imprint in the memories of its visitors. As a testament to that influence, it continues to spark ideological debates for the years after its physical “death”.

Berlin is an unusual city compared to the rest of Germany. It is dysraphic, always in flux, a “work in progress” architecturally and ideologically. History is demolished and erased, with new structures and memories and stories erected in their place. However, this unfinished quality in landscape and identity of the city, this constant transition and being “in-between” spaces or states is what makes Berlin so attractive to artists as a subject matter to work with. Many artists created important bodies of work based on or inspired by the legendary building of Palast der Republik, its architectural structure and its symbolism.

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Several art exhibitions were also dedicated to the building and the location of the Schlossplatz.

Some artists were inspired by the site of Palast der Republik while in flux to explore its historical political or architectural context or aesthetical forms.

Many artists worked on the themes of memory, transparency, and nostalgia for their art projects.

I would like to suggest that that body of artworks that were not produced on the site during this transitional time for Palast der Republik, but those that were about the site, inspired by the site – create a new “idea-space” in between which is not a physical space, however exists through the physical artworks of the artists. This additional “idea-space” is captured and solidified by the artists for the years ahead of us through their artworks and will exist in the future as a meme even though the physical location would not be considered as being in transition anymore.

Here are some particularly important examples of the artists who define this “idea-space." In her piece The Detachment (1996), Sophie Calle photographed the spaces in Berlin from which the symbols of GDR were removed, then she asked passers-by what, according to their memory, was missing. As she put it: “I visited places from which symbols of GDR history have been effaced. I asked passers-by and residents to describe the objects that once filled these empty spaces. I photographed their absence and replaced the missing monuments with their memories.”7 Sophie Calle aimed to fill in the holes, to bridge the gaps in reflection and memory. The act of remembrance is very important for Calle`s work.

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Søren Lose too works with the notion that a physical structure can both consciously and unconsciously embed meaning within us. In his art project for the exhibition at Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen, he described his interest in working on the building of Palast der Republik for the reason that it was a project “about much more than just the disappearance of a building”. Lose considers “urban space and architecture as a kind of organism, an integrated part of the people that live in it .”8 The artists’ subject matter also covered the building’s architectural structure, capturing its different phases, its “broken body,” and its moments of destruction.

The video work entitled Palast (2004) by Tacita Dean conveyed a nostalgic sentiment towards the uncanny and poetic beauty of the bronze windows of the building by recording the light reflecting off its surface.

In contranst, the large-scale photographs that constituted a freeze by Thomas Florschuetz captured the rough reality of the phases of the Palast’s destruction. Finally, the gaping holes in the urban landscape of Berlin, filled in with continuous construction would be commemorated through Michael Wesely’s photograph captured through an 18 month long exposure of Palast der Republik, Berlin (28.6.2006–19.12.2008).

The Palast will continue on in some physical way as it was rebuilt as a small-scale model by Berlin artists’ team Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani and entitled Club of the Republic. The work triggers memory, evoking the restaurants and dance clubs of the former public building of the German Democratic Republic.

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Larissa Fassler has been working on the subject for over two years now. Her sculptural work entitled PALACE / PALACE “explores the question of who can lay claim or has a right to historical memories, what should be left standing, what should be demolished or rebuilt, and how this changes the meaning and interpretation of the city again and again .”9 She continues working on a series of large-scale drawing and prints based again on this on this pertinent subject but now looking at the current activity and life that exist there today.

Even if not approached directly, the Palast der Republik has seeped its way into Berlin-based artists’ works. The artist duo, benandsebastian, work on subjects that transcend their specific architectural sites. Their work takes a universal perspective. While creating their piece city of the (re)orientated they definitely had the Palast der Republik in the back of their minds. They had been working on the project while the latter was undergoing destruction. From a conversation with benandsebastian they mentioned that they “were thinking about the city in terms of a mental mapping of its fragments and voids, and its neural-like connections between the visible and the invisible, the present and the absent.”

Some of these works, and other works, were shown in dedicated exhibitions. For example, in the summer of 2006, Hamburger Bahnhof included the works by Sophie Calle, Tacita Dean, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani and Thomas Florschuetz which all focused on the Palast der Republik. Then in 2012, The Arken Museum Of Modern Art in Copenhagen 69

Dysraphic Site

organized and exhibition Trefftpunkt: Berlin, where artists reflected on Berlin`s social, cultural and architectural reality of past and present.

Artists continue to be inspired by and relate to the ever-changing, dysraphic city of Berlin. The site of the Palast der Republik continues to generate artworks and opinions. Its state “in-between” will always be imprinted in the personal and collective memory through the visual arts. As a physical location, the “third” space of Palast der Republik as a Volkspalast, has influenced a lot of political and cultural opinions and generated a lot of debates. On the other side, this transitional, dysraphic position, from the Palast der Republik to Stadtschloss, is captured by contemporary artists therefore it will always exist as a special place in the city history by creating this “idea-space." Dysraphic city, dysraphic site, influential artwork.

1 See Elizabeth Grosz, Architecture from the

Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space

(2001) and bell hooks, Choosing the margin

as a space of radical openness (1990) 2 Luz, Ana. Places In-Between:

The Transitional Locations of Nomadic Narratives. Web. 3 ‘The Republic of the Facades’. Peanutz Architekten. Web. 03 August 2013.

4 ‘Der Berg’. raumlabor berlin. Web. 02 August 2013.

5 ‘Mission Statement’ Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin. 31 August 2010. Web. 02 August 2013 6 “...with regard to its social and economic

structure, Berlin is still an exception among

other cities worldwide. Within the city’s

historically determined heterogeneity and

intermixture of social diversity lies a potential

for the future, not a phased-out model from

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the past.” See ‘Manifesto’. Haben und Brauchen. 2011. Web. 7 Art Fairs International. Web. 8 See Søren Lose interview by Helle Brøns,

“Taking Palast der Republik in Berlin as a

starting point Søren Lose stages a ruinous

scenario that point to the city as a space of

collective experience and remembrance”.

Overgaden exhibition leaflet. 2009. Web. 9 Larissa Fassler: PALACE / PALACE. gallery

SEPTEMBER: Berlin, 11 September - 13

October 2012. Press Release.

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7 raumlaborberlin Interventions InĂŞs Oliveira

raumlaborberlin interventions

The Berlin-based architecture collective raumlaborberlin was founded in 1999. Initially formed by eight architects, it now has a larger team that also collaborates with other artists and organizations.

Focused on architecture, urbanistic strategies, artistic interventions and scenography this collective is “attracted to difficult urban locations. Places torn between different systems, time periods or planning ideologies, that can not adapt. Places that are abandoned, left over or in transition that contain some relevance for the processes of urban transformations.”1 Usually working in small scales they give priority to the conditions of the site and respect the city residents’ experience. Having said this, it is impossible not to remark on the raumlaborberlin interventions in the city, beginning with their actions on Tempelhof airport.

In 2007 they were commissioned by the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development to study and reconceptualize Tempelhof. At this point it was still being used as an airport. Soon, however, raumlaborberlin suggested and implemented some cultural strategies in order to re-think the potential for “urbanism” over the following five years under the project: AKTIVIERENDE STADTENTWICKLUNG / FLUGHAFEN TEMPELHOF. As the city does not have the conditions to reconstruct something in a grand scale on the Tempelhof site, raumlaborberlin believed that this space should be used for cultural purposes.

Their proposal was for people to apply with projects for the old airport field, with the stipulation that these projects, need to be stable and recognizable to 74

Inês Oliveira

Die Stadtmatratze. Image courtesy of raumlaborberlin

someone from outside Berlin. Projects that could be long lasting, but not definitive.

Not only have they been concerned with the future of this airport ground but also the resources and structures remaining at the site. In 2012 they organized a kind of “Expo": DIE GROSSE WELTAUSSTELLUNG / THE WORLD IS NOT FAIR. In reference to the world fairs, they proposed 15 pavillions in collaboration with artists, filmmakers and architects. They were not trying to show how the world is supposed to be, but instead how we perceive it. Part of these pavillions were constructed with materials or used facilities that had previously belonged to the airport.

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Das Küchenmonument. Image courtesy of Rainer Schlautmann and raumlaborberlin

Working with another historically loaded site, in 2005, after the Palast der Republik was demolished, raumlaborberlin reflected on the memories of this place with the project DER BERG. They installed a mountain formation inside and in front of this former building. Together with some performances and other installations, this project was designed to make people think about the layers of history in Berlin and the meaning of concrete ruins when it comes to talking about an important city centre. A topic especially relevant to Berlin.

Beyond this, raumlaborberlin have made installations in public spaces in Berlin. One good example is the “Kitchen Monument” – DAS KÜCHENMONUMENT (2006). It is a mobile sculpture that 76

Inês Oliveira

could be inflated in different spaces of the city.

The sculpture transformed an area into a temporary collective space for the public to be within. It could contain temporary programmes in the city, functioning as a conference room, a cinema, a dormitory, a concert hall and more.

Also, on the occasion of Tuned city (a 5 day con-ference on sound and public space) raumlaborberlin installed a triangular pneumatic mattress in Alexander-platz. It measured 15 metres on each side and people could sit on it while listening to the con-ferences on wireless headphones. The CITY MATTRESS – DIE STADTMATRATZE (2008) “questions our behavioural codes in public space, especially the physical actions of the bodies within the space…A tension is created between the individual and the temporary collective. The city mattress is an experimental condensator for acting in public.”2 raumlaborberlin treats the city as a shifting landscape, using architecture as a tool to approach new identities and possibilities. Their experimental methods turn away from the idea of utopia and grand ambition, engaging instead with down-to-earth proposals; proposals that will not only surprise the city’s residents but also affect their experience of the city.

1 ‘About’ raumlaborberlin. Web.

01 August 2013.

2 ‘CITY MATTRESS – DIE STADTMATRATZE’

raumlaborberlin. Web. 01 August 2013.

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8 Tempelhofer Feld Wouter De Raeve and Benjamin Deboosere

Tempelhofer Feld

Wouter De Raeve and Benjamin Deboosere examine the current state and potential future of Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin. Three years ago the former city airport became a temporary public space; a unique realm where visitors of all ages, classes and cultures are welcome.

Today, the field is marked by a liberating feeling of walking on (and almost seemingly trespassing) the former airport. At the same time minimal infrastructure and rules were introduced by the Senate of Berlin.

There appears to be a balance between what is planned and what is left unplanned.1 On the one hand this current state of the space provides the necessary freedom for interpretation, as well as the possibility to frame this freedom. On the other hand, it might fit into the government’s plan to install a designer park surrounded by new housing units. If this were to happen, chances are that the emphasis will be on safety and public order as well as efficiency and profitability. This may result in a space that is too controlled, aseptic, and mono-functional.

The unplanned will be transformed into the intended, and the site can fall back on what critics have termed neo-liberal urban development; often characterized by privately owned spaces that look public but only allow a limited number of strictly defined activities.2 Their research aims to address the following two questions: “Why is Tempelhofer Feld’s present situation such an interesting space?” and “How can Tempelhofer Feld keep its potential?” It will result in a publication that captures the feeling and momentum of the temporary situation through photography, while 80

Tempelhofer Feld

also framing and questioning this feeling through interviews. In collaboration with the interviewees, De Raeve and Deboosere critically address the above-mentioned questions.

In light of Berlin’s rich history of temporary use of undefined spaces 3 and Europe’s current political and economic situation, their research has the intention to contribute and reflect on a future-oriented urban policy.

The artists would like to acknowledge Kunsten en Erfgoed and Air Berlin Alexanderplatz for their support.

1

2

3

Cupers, K., ‘Promises of a Free Space’.

Cahier #3 Vlaams Bouwmeester, Belgium, 2012. Print. p. 214 Cupers, K., ‘Promises of a Free Space’.

Cahier #3 Vlaams Bouwmeester, Belgium, 2012. Print. p. 209 Oswalt, Philipp. ‘The Ephemeral’. Berlin_ Stadt ohne Form, Strategien einer anderen Architektur. München / New York, 2000. Print.

◄ Image on previous page by

Benjamin Deboosere

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One by one the clay feet are sanded, the sorrows remanded.

A fleet of ferries, forever merry.

Show folks know that what the fighting man wants is to win the war and come home.

9 A trip to the Teufelsberg, likely the most interesting mountain in Germany Raphael Rogenmoser

A trip to the Teufeslberg

There it was. The yellow sign saying “No trespassing – danger." I’d just been walking for 40 minutes. The starting point was the Berlin Olympic Stadium, which I’d never visited before, despite many trips to Berlin.

Already impressed by Berlin’s history, I passed neighborhoods with little family homes and hiked through the forest, but following an ascent of about 20 minutes my little trip came to a halt. A barbed wire fence obstructed my passage and the yellow sign did not exactly inspire me with trust.

From Adolf Hitler’s military-technical college to the present rubble mound The Teufelsberg (Devil’s Mountain) is a hill in the western part of Berlin and according to measurements in 2013, is 394ft above sea level at its highest elevation. At this exact location, Adolf Hitler started building a military-technical college (Wehrtechnische Fakultät) in 1937. According to plans by Albert Speer, the Nazis were going to build one of the largest research facilities and the future training center for young military academics of the Third Reich. Rather baleful topics were going to be taught there. The subway station, Wehrtechnische Fakultät, was at least partly built. This station was going to connect the military-technical college to Germania, the capital of the Reich. But in 1940 the Nazis stopped the development of the site – some of the buildings were 56ft high – due to problems with the escalating war.

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After the war, parts of the ruin were blasted and reused as construction material. The rest was filled with debris. Between 1950 and 1972, of all the buildings that were bombed during the war, about two thirds of their remains (around 15,000 buildings) were deposited on the site of the Teufelsberg. This amounted to almost 920,000 cubic feet of debris and made the Teufelsberg the highest elevation in then West Berlin. After banking up had ended, the Teufelsberg was covered with sand and soil and almost one million trees were planted. On weekends, thousands of Berlin residents went there for winter sports. There was a ski slope and a coasting slide.

Even international competitions in skiing and ski jumping were held on the Teufelsberg. But the conditions of the infrastructure became worse due to a general lack of maintenance and finally everything was torn down in 1999.

An artist friend of mine had encouraged me to go and explore the Teufelsberg. So I called him: “There is a fence and a sign, telling me not to enter. Are you sure I’m at the right spot?” He replied that I was definitely right. All I should do was sneak through a hole in the fence and then look for the white domes.

These white spheres could be seen from afar.

I approached them, not feeling entirely comfortable.

In a corner three punks were making coffee on an open fire. They noticed me, but didn’t seem interested in me as an intruder. My compliments were unanswered.

Everything seemed exciting on this summer afternoon about six years ago.

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A trip to the Teufeslberg

Radio messages intercepted from as far as Moscow Until 1992 the Teufelsberg was a restricted area and one of the most important settings of the Cold War in divided Berlin. As early as 1957, the US army discovered that the hill was an excellent site for a listening station. At first there was only a mobile installation to survey the airspace. Of most interest were the three air lanes between Berlin and western Germany. The mobile facilities were soon replaced by a complex of buildings however. Over time five radomes were built, which listened far into the territory of the Warsaw Pact. In the beginning the listening station was mostly used by the NSA, but later also by other American and British intelligence and security services. In its prime, almost 2000 soldiers worked on the Teufelsberg 24 / 7. The site was also part of the worldwide spy net Echelon. Few parts of the green area on the Teufelsberg were not used by the military.

But in the 1970s and '80s, wine was grown on the southern hillside of the Teufelsberg.

On the decay of the area The compound of the former listening station was abandoned after 1992. It fell prey to vandalism. Then the Berlin senate sold the compound (almost 4 acres) for 5.2 million Deutsche Marks to the investment association the Teufelsberg KG (IGTB) from Cologne in 1996. They in turn commissioned the architects 88

Raphael Rogenmoser

Von Gruhl & Partner to develop plans for the construction of a hotel with a conference center, a spy museum, high-rise apartments and a restaurant.

A faded plaque at the entrance to the area reveals, that the completion was due in 2002. But protests and lawsuits by residents, nature conservation organizations, and ever-increasing costs brought the ambitious project to its knees. All that was completed is a sample loft condo, this can still be visited in the large building under the radar tower.

The huge area was run down, with debris and waste all over the place. The walls were covered with graffiti. The largest building had a spray painted external staircase. I climbed two floors and entered a building with no outer walls. Inside there were walls.

But they didn’t touch the ceiling. They seemed more like a practice ground for sprayers. Everything was full of graffiti and rubbish, with holes in the floors. So there was a real sense of danger to this trip after all. The higher up the dark staircase I climbed, the more overwhelming the view became until I finally reached the roof. Wow! All of Berlin was stretched out in front of me and what a surprise: I was not alone. Four other visitors were just as impressed as me. Friendly regards were exchanged, knowing that we both shared the experience of exploring this exciting place not mentioned in any official tourist guide. From up here one could not only see the Olympic Stadium as well as the Maifeld and the TV tower, but also the nature reserve area Grßnau and the river Havel.

One could actually enter the two domes on the roof.

Clapping your hands or shouting was most fascinating, 89

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as the echo would spread immediately within the spheres. On the rooftop there was a tower, which was itself towered by yet another dome. Six more stories to climb. The view remained the same. But with the rising level of adrenaline it seemed even more exciting. So I entered the highest dome of them all. Unlike the others, it was not yet tattered. So it also had the best echo of the entire site. Out of one door, I could see the city. My fear of heights started creeping in.

I decided to climb back to the rooftop and rest there for a little while. For a long time I’ve told people about my visit to the Teufelsberg. It must have been one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen. I felt like an adventurer. Even though I was not exposed to any physical danger, it was as if I could travel back in time.

Unknown future Because construction could not be finished in time in 2004, according to the Berlin land utilization plan, the area was declared woodland again. So any further construction is forbidden. It is still unclear what should be done with the site. The AktionsbĂźndnis Teufelsberg, an initiative founded by conservationists, residents and the Green Party, demand the complete renaturation of the entire area. Even the investors disagree among themselves. Some of them would like to stick to the old concept, albeit on a smaller scale.

But a group formed by an architect from Cologne, Hartmut Gruhl, has plans for a restaurant, a museum, function rooms, historical research facilities and 90

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archives. Currently the area is leased to an artists’ colony. They offer legal guided tours and sublet the area to film crews. It is also they who fix the holes in the fence and keep unwanted or non-paying visitors out.

I’m visiting the Teufelsberg for the second time this year, together with two colleagues from the Node residency program. I know that there is a quicker way to the top, but I want them to experience the same feelings that impressed me so much at the time. We arrive at the fence. The yellow sign is gone. There are holes in the fence all over. But they have been repaired professionally, so there’s no getting through without heavy tools. I feel a little guilty. After all it’s me who led them up here in this scorching heat, and it seems we’re not even going to get in on this day. More and more young people gather along the fence and try to get in somehow. Patrícia is the smallest and skinniest of us. She actually manages to squeeze herself in, but she’s the only one and doesn’t feel comfortable on the other side of the fence. We hear a strange sound. I’m saying: “Sounds like a boar to me.”

Patrícia sneaks through to our side again. Inside, a car is approaching the main gate. A bearded young man exits. He talks on his phone and opens the padlock of the gate at the same time. He drives through the gate and then locks it again. We look at each other, somewhat puzzled. About five minutes later, a lean elderly man (he might be around 60) comes up to the gate. It feels like 90 degrees Fahrenheit and it’s broad daylight, yet the man is wearing a headlamp. His voice is creaky, but it seems he’s long lost his marbles 91

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anyway. He explains to us, that we could participate in a guided tour. It costs 7 euros. “No, not now”, he tells us, it actually starts in 20 minutes because first he must go look for the cash register his colleague has hidden somewhere. So patiently we wait with an everincreasing crowd. After 20 minutes we eventually do get to enter, one by one. We have to show our ID and sign a declaration stating that we ourselves are wholly responsible for any accidents that might happen while on the site. This is not exactly an agreement of mutual trust. But still: the area has not lost any of its fascination. So the three of us stand on the highest tower and look at the vastness below. We all know that there could not be a better place to be right now.

We discuss the history of the area and start imagining what great cultural projects could be realized up here. An exhibition of sound art in the five domes. Readings of spy novels with a subsequent guided tour. Open air concerts or movie screenings.

The buildings could be great stage settings for theater or operas. All we can do is hope, that the authorities and proprietors have not yet lost this enthusiasm and that they can agree on some solution, which will preserve this extraordinary space for generations yet to come.

‘Teufelsberg’ Wikipedia. Web. 27 July 2013.

Stollowsky, Christoph. ‘Speers Geheimnis unter dem Teufelsberg’. Der Tagesspiegel|Berlin. 12 June 2007 Web. 27 July 2013.

Dobberke, Cay. ‘Alle dürfen mitreden beim Teufelsberg’. Der Tagesspiegel| Berlin. 02 May 2013. Web. 27 July 2013.

‘Kleine Teufelsberg Geschichte’.

Berlin Sight Out. Web. 27 July 2013.

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10 Teufelsberg, a place in ruins PatrĂ­cia Rosas

Teufelsberg, a place in ruins

The Teufelsberg is an obligatory stop in Berlin, especially for newly arrived artists who are in search of historical landmarks. Known today as the “Devil’s Mountain”, it was built to be a spy station in the early 1960s; it was the perfect place for the Americans and the British to listen to Russian communications.

The first units took up position on the hill in 1961, then with more permanent facilities two years later.

Therefore, at one point, it became the biggest and the most modern spying listening platform in the West, before gradually the site became overgrown.

The Teufelsberg is nevertheless still waiting for rehabilitation. This hill in Grünewald Forest, now abandoned and somewhat degraded welcomes any form of intervention by artists and individuals who are passing by and want to leave a mark. Now in a state of decay, breathing a romantic atmosphere of ruins, the Teufelsberg has lost its former identity and is open for reinvention.

The original architecture, characteristic of an espionage center is still visible. The main structures of the building, including the control tower are preserved. However, interiors were destroyed and some of the buildings no longer exist. The highest tower whose dome is formed from a hexagonal pattern, and the other two domes are protected by triangular formations, which sit over the old listening stations. These structures have offered inspiration to many artists.

The artbase Festival 2012 would have taken place here in August, but the event was prohibited by the public authorities and was cancelled due to 94

Shingo Yoshida CUL DE SAC (Teufelsberg-Devil's Mountain) 2011 digital print 30 Ă— 40 cm

Teufelsberg, a place in ruins

administrative reasons. Many street artists had already started working on the hill when the cancellation was announced. This left the main building walls full of graffiti art in various stages of completion. It is difficult to choose which one is my favorite: it's great to see the walls covered with human faces, animals, aliens, robots, as well as several other extraordinary pieces of graffiti.

Beyond the site-specific artists, there are also foreign artists based in Berlin and from all over the world who have documented and fallen in love with this magical place.

Shingo Yoshida was born in Tokyo and now lives in Berlin. In 2011, he spent one night on the Devil’s Mountain. The series of photographs at the Teufelsberg presents a lone character with a suitcase in different areas of the space. In the image reproduced here, a suitcase on the ground of the Teufelsberg functions as a self-portrait of the artist.

For Yoshida, travelling is an important aspect of his character and integral to his artistic practice. Yoshida’s photographs take place during the time between sunset and sunrise, reflecting the mysterious aura of the environment during the night.

Sergio Belinchón was born in Valencia, and also lives in Berlin. In the series Berlin, an Archaeology, from 2005, the artist is most concerned with documenting strategic spaces during the Cold War ◄ Sergio Belinchón

Berlin, an Archaeology 2005 c-print

40 × 50 cm

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in Berlin, and how these areas now have lost their strategic importance. Some of these photographs are memories and reflections of the Teufeslberg. One image appears to be a visual geometric abstraction, presenting a detail of one of the domes; and the other image is of an abandoned and destroyed room, of a place in ruins.

While artists are unable to physically rehabilitate the site themselves, they are instead contributing to its history, preserving and developing it in their own way as an essential location beyond its dilapidated state.

‘Teufelsberg – cancelled artbase2012’ finding berlin. 27 September 2012. Web. 05 August 2013.

‘Teufelsberg – The Art Gallery On The Devil’s Mountain’. andBerlin. 25 March 2013. Web. 05 August 2013.

“Nice being here with anybody.� Slips find the most indefatigable invaginations,surreptitious requiems.

Surfeit, sure fight.

11 Kßnstlerhaus Bethanien: an institution in flux throughout Berlin’s history Juliette Premmereur

Künstlerhaus Bethanien

The story of Künstlerhaus Bethanien is inherently tied to the history of the building that it originated in on Mariannenplatz, the socio-political development of Berlin in the later part of the 20th century, and of course to the individuals that helped turn it into the institution it is today.

In 1975, Dr Michael Haerdter founded Künstlerhaus Bethanien GmbH in a former hospital from the mid-19th century, and remained its director until 2000.

Under his leadership the institution lived through several lives, initially starting as a center hosting and exhibiting all artistic disciplines and already drawing a diverse international community. Künstlerhaus Bethanien eventually grew into a renowned platform for the presentation of contemporary visual art and has exhibited hundreds of projects by nearly 950 artists from around the world.

In 1991, Christoph Tannert was appointed to the post of Project Coordinator at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, becoming its Director in 2000. The main focus of Tannert’s work has been on exhibition organization and art criticism within the field of contemporary art, becoming co-editor of the “BE” magazine published

by Künstlerhaus Bethanien. In 2005, the historic Bethanien building was occupied by left-wing autonomists who refused to leave or the offer to stay and pay the water and heating bills and destroyed the artworks in the exhibition hall. This squatting movement created two factions within the community of artists: those who resolutely opposed the occupation, and those who endorsed it enthusiastically. Seeking support from various political parties and the Berlin 102

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Lottery Foundation, Künstlerhaus Bethanien was eventually able to relocate into a newly whitewashed building, a former manufacturing building known as Lichtfabrik “Light Factory,” located in the same multicultural district of Kreuzberg. There, it maintains its strong artist residency and exhibition program, constantly redefining itself within a changing city.

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Interview with Dr Michael Haerdter, founding Director of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, by Juliette Premmereur.

Juliette Premmereur: I have been thinking about the legacy of 1968 and how Künstlerhaus Bethanien was founded in this particular period. Could you speak about how you first encountered Bethanien and what it was founded on?

Michael Haerdter: Firstly, I was involved in theatre.

Of course that was only part of the initial program of Künstlerhaus Bethanien, but still a very important part.

Theatre interested me from very early on. The first significant job I had was at Schauspielhaus Zürich, which is famous because it hosted a good number of important artists, actors, and stage designers who fled Nazi Germany. I was an assistant stage director and playwright in this space, and it influenced me a lot.

Later, I was also involved in journalism, writing about theatre, and then in the 1960s I was hired by the Schiller Theater here in Berlin. The Schiller Theater has an important place in German theatre history.

I don’t know if you are aware of the role of theatre in Germany?

Since the Weimar Republic, theatre has been subsidized by the state. During the long, controversial history of Germany during the 1800s when it was trying to form a nation, the Germans fought for democracy and a unified state but didn’t succeed until the Weimar Republic. For a long time, Germany was split into smaller autocratic states and their theatre 104

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stages actually replaced inexistent parliaments.

Theater served as a kind of public debate ground and actors held the important function of being representatives of the German people and a nation that existed intellectually, rather than practically. That is why up to today, public theater in Germany – the so-called ‘Staats und Stadttheater’ - has held a very important place in the public notion of politics.

Solving problems for alternative movements, organizations, and groups has been my object from very early on. The Schiller Theater engaged me as a dramaturge in the 1960s. I disliked this role because it was contrary to what I wanted to achieve. However, I spent several years there. My best experience at Schiller Theater was becoming assistant director to Samuel Beckett. He was invited to come and produce one of his plays in Berlin, so I called him in Paris and he immediately said yes. He knew Berlin because he had travelled here for several years during the early years of Nazism, and had written a highly critical journal on his travels there at the time.

As you know he had a difficult life before becoming famous. He was an outsider at first and it took a long time for him to be recognized. His life is paradigmatic of the transition of alternative movements to an initial recognition and eventual institutionalization. Beckett never wanted to do theater; he wanted to be a novelist. But unfortunately for him, and fortunately for us, he was really successful with Waiting for Godot.

In Berlin, he did The Endgame and the main actor who played Hamm came to know me and suggested to the Academy of Arts that I should become their new 105

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General Secretary, which I was eventually invited to be. I wasn’t very involved in the Academy and the role they wanted me to play; I was never an institutional man, and followed the spirit of 1968.

Although I was older than the majority of the 68ers, I felt this was my program as well. 1968 became an international movement, but it also harkened a return to the German situation. The German movement was of course directed against the dullness of the society of the 1950s and ‘60s, which held on to a repression of the past and didn’t want to be demoralized by confronting the Nazi past. They didn’t want to scrutinize and deal with the remnants of this history. This attitude was ended by the generation of 1968, who started to speak about what had happened, about their mothers and fathers and grandparents. It was a huge public discussion, an important moment of transition to a new recognition, a new consciousness of being German and of being European, and indeed the start of the alternative cultural-political movement During this period, I had the chance to launch Künstlerhaus Bethanien with the assistance of the Academy.

Künstlerhaus Bethanien is an idea that originally grew out of the Academy of Arts and my position there.

But practically, it came from the fact that the actual space was available. There was a new health policy in Berlin at the time to create larger compounds of clinics and hospitals, houses, resulting in the closure of smaller hospitals. Bethanien was a smaller, very successful hospital run by the Protestant Jacobite sisters. They unfortunately had to give it up, so it was our chance to take over. My first move was 106

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to protect the house: I immediately had to stop it from being demolished. This important historical building of the Schinkel School of architecture was created in the mid-19th century by King Frederic William IV of Prussia; he’s the one on the horse in front of the building.

I was asked to do the administrative measures to get monument protection for the building. It was successful and we got the house. But it was still a difficult time, with the house being vandalized before we could move in.

Were there also squatters at the time?

Partially. The houses next to it were occupied, so it was definitely vandalized inside. They destroyed the organ in the chapel, for example. It was sad, as we had to wait for the money to start any repairs.

But that’s how we came to Bethanien, backed by the Academy. It was important for the political situation in Berlin as well as for the Academy to find a place where the Berlin-based and German artists could meet foreign artists. I knew it was important to come back to a cosmopolitan Berlin that had existed since the 19th century. It used to be one of the cosmopolitan centers for the arts and it had to be brought back.

In parallel, the German Academic Exchange Service for Foreign artists, which still exists, invited artists from all over the world and thought they should have a meeting place. It was not so well received by the political authorities. Like the main political situation in all countries, cultural politics was segregated into factions or sections, with a guy for music, a guy for literature, two guys for the visual arts, and they do not 107

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Outside view of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, entrance to artists studios at Kohlfurter Str. 41 / 43. Image courtesy of Georg Schroeder / Künstlerhaus Bethanien

cooperate! They have their money and they sit on it.

I wanted to have a house that supported diversity and interdisciplinary action. Looking back at the history of Berlin since the 1920s, transition and diversity are the two main themes at play; this was the idea I started with.

“The Age of Catastrophe,” said Eric Hobsbawn, the Marxist historian from London who died recently, was a great influence for me. Hobsbawn spent part of his youth in Berlin. He is an important historian for me, and coined this notion of the age of catastrophe, which I believe we are still in. The Volksbewegung, the popular movement of Nazism resulted in an huge exodus of creative people and intellectuals from Berlin and the rest of Germany, and helped spur the enormous progress in cultural development in the 108

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United States. Künstlerhaus Bethanien was a modest effort to repair this loss, but this meant, of course, that we had to do it aggressively. I started with theater, which by nature is an example of diversity encompassing the visual arts, music, literature, language, and the living body. The visual arts were also significant in every respect from classical painting, sculpture, and decorative arts to performance, installation, and experimental art.

For about 15 years from the 30 I served at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, I followed my idea of a program based on diversity and transnationalism. I eventually had to reduce spending, with financial support being precarious. In our first 15 years, many institutions followed our mission and we were able to give up disciplines like literature to other organizations that performed a similar function.

In the beginning, did you come up against reactions to this international openness? It seems to be a particularly strong force, now, the desire for space to be governed by local entities.

Yes certainly, like the administration’s resistance against diversity, but not against transnationalism.

Things are never obvious; they are always ambiguous.

We had true friends among our civil servants and Künstlerhaus Bethanien programming had support from a large community and faithful audiences.

Berlin’s cultural climate at the time was open to the world, and the city large enough to also serve local interests. However, from the very beginning we had to do with unfriendly political groups and entities.

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It was a highly political situation difficult to imagine today. We were surrounded by enemies including several communist groups: the Marxist-Leninists, the Maoists, among others who fought against me.

The actual starting point was in 1975. Our first public program was a literature event, a reading of left-wing poetry by German writers. Opening the institution for the first time, we were extremely afraid of hostility.

Our so-called Studio 2 (the operating room of the former hospital), which was not very large, was completely overcrowded. Normally it would fit 150 people and we probably had about 250. The ten or so poets who were reading also took side with us and in the end it was a triumph, a truly wonderful evening going well into the night. The audience that initially wanted another Bethanien was won over by us.

When it was founded, was Künstlerhaus Bethanien perceived as an alternative to the more established Academy of the Arts?

Yes, it was conceived and perceived as an alternative.

The Academy is an institution based on established artists’ membership and representation of the arts, whereas the Künstlerhaus is a workshop based on the presence of emerging contemporary artists for shorter, project-based work, or ‘artslab’ as we used to call it. Still, the backing of the renowned Academy was an important force in establishing ourselves and receiving necessary political support. The Academy’s divide into sections for the various artistic disciplines also served as an example to justify our own diverse program. There was cooperation between the two institutions, and sometimes even a bit of competition.

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Would you say that the main sources of conflict that were at play in the role of the institution were its multi-disciplinary focus and its effort to connect to an international sphere?

It’s true, they were early conflicts. We started an avant-garde project; the founding ideas naturally drew misunderstandings. But as soon as the Künstlerhaus gained national and international reputation, our situation was no longer controversial. More and more people understood that we were living in a transitional time, a time of change. Once again the story of Samuel Beckett may serve as an example: an outsider with no success as a novelist and his works rejected by umpteen publishers, he eventually became a Nobel Prize Winner when he reluctantly chose to become a playwright. These transitions are typical of what happens: today, the once alternative Künstlerhaus Bethanien has become institutionalized.

And was the audience always local?

We had all kind of audiences: local, national, and transnational. In the early years, we initiated a good number of programs with Turkish artists, a sociopolitical project addressing the Turks that were living in Kreuzberg. Where audiences were concerned, we had to observe a double policy: “the monastery and the marketplace."

The monastery is the artist studio, not to be disturbed by the audience, secluded and sacred. The market deals with the outside, the audience, and the public space. It was not easy to always balance them out, but I think we succeeded.

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I am starting to understand what kind of institution Künstlerhaus Bethanien started as. What do you see as the legacy of the original institution still present now? Is there a constant?

There certainly is. The Künstlerhaus still relies on the national and international reputation it gained primarily during its first 20 to 30 years. My former colleague and successor, Christoph Tannert, decided to leave the old Bethanien ‘castle’ and restrict the program to the visual arts, a choice that I respect. Still, I am sad about a certain impoverishment, dropping the idea of multidisciplinary projects that initially contributed to our reputation: the Tango events, the international seminars on theater and film directing.

The Künstlerhaus seems to have had different lives.

Yes, for example after the Tango show many people thought it was a Tangueria.

It must be nice to be able to transition between one identity to another.

Berlin is now living in a new phase where it is reestablishing its former cosmopolitanism. I would like to think Künstlerhaus Bethanien helped pave the way towards it.

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Interview with Christoph Tannert, current Artistic Director of the KĂźnstlerhaus Bethanien, by Juliette Premmereur.

Juliette Premmereur: You started working at KĂźnstlerhaus Bethanien in 1991. Can you speak a bit about what kind of institution you encountered then and how it has evolved?

Christoph Tannert: In the 1990s, Dr. Michael Haerdter was the director. He had founded the institute in 1975.

The early ‘90s where a difficult time overall; this was a few years after the wall had come down and Berlin was in an economic crisis. There had been some cuts to the budget but overall the situation was more or less the same since the 1970s. Then, in the year 2000, when Haerdter retired, I changed the focus of our program because of some political changes in the city of Berlin and to the situation of our trustees. We refocused our program onto artistic production and curatorial practice. It was no longer possible to invite theatre troupes, dancers and film directors as we did before. This was a big change for us.

What do you mean by political changes? What specifically affected the refocusing of the program?

The city of Berlin was no longer able to finance people who had been working here in our team and we had to cut these institutional bases. There was another change in 1994 when we decided to stop the worldwide open call procedure. We changed the procedure into a kind of jury dialogue between our scouts, partners, and institutes.

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Was there a change in the kind of funding structure?

It was always financially based, but also related to political decisions and discourses. We are always trying to balance the funding program because the contracts we are signing are both long term and for short periods like one to three years. We have to find new sources, collaborate with new partners, and develop new financial bases. Politicians are changing under democratic circumstances so you always need to find new partners in the Berlin government willing to cooperate with you. So it’s a mixed, open program with support from “Land Berlin” but also from different partners from all over the world.

I’m trying to understand the relationships that Künstlerhaus Bethanien has developed locally and internationally. I am coming from abroad, and perceive it as a well-respected institution.

Who do you consider to be your public? How much are you connected to the local community and how much do you focus on building an international reputation?

That’s also an open process. When Künstlerhaus Bethanien started in 1975 until the mid-90s, there were a lot of artists based in Berlin but they were mostly foreigners. The studios were 70% foreign artists but there were other initiatives, projects, curated programs, exhibitions, and concerts that Berlin artists were invited to participate in, especially the young avant-garde. When you look at our chronology, you will find a lot of Berlin-based artists towards the beginning. When we changed the program in 2000, 114

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only foreigners were invited to use the studios. This was a result of an economic change; Berlin no longer had the budget to support artists from the city or Germany. There was also a big change of audience; Künstlerhaus Bethanien has existed for 37 years o there have been two generations of artists related to the institution. There was a significant break when we moved from Mariannenplatz to Kottbusser Straße.

We found out that we more or less lost the first generation, which had grown up in the old building and was no longer coming to the new one. But we found a new generation. I would say 70-80% of our current audience belongs to this new generation: they are between 18 and 30 years old and a lot of them think of Künstlerhaus Bethanien as a new institution because they haven’t heard of our beginnings at Mariannenplatz. This is a big change. On the other hand, because we have been doing this program for such a long time and because we have these international contacts, the world knows we exist. We have a large virtual international audience and community connected to us. In Berlin we have a young Berlinbased audience with many foreigners. But more and more people from the neighborhood are coming, so it’s growing and developing.

There seems to be a reactionary movement between local people claiming their space and the influx of foreigners alongside the gentrification of Kreuzberg. Do you sense you have a role in this conflict and are you forced to take a position?

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This is one of the problems we face because, from the start, Künstlerhaus Bethanien was as an international institute. In the beginning it was Krankenhaus Bethanien (“Hospital Bethanien”) and later took on the name Künstlerhaus Bethanien because of our activities. The world looked at and was influenced

by Künstlerhaus Bethanien and the hundreds of international artists who had been working there. On the other hand, it was frustrating for artists from Berlin because it wasn’t easy for them to be invited to work in the program since studios were exclusively given to foreigners. It was our decision and interest to have international artists. That’s why there was this conflict between Kreuzberg-based or Berlin-based artists and our institution.

But at Mariannenplatz, there was also Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, the local institution that did projects related to the district in the same building as us. Now we are here on Kottbusser Strasse but Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien still exists there.

This is one of the problems we encountered with gentrification: the squatters attacked us because we had the connection to international artists and in their narrow perspective, the foreigners are bad because they are coming here, pushing up the prices, the rents, and so on, which is stupid and not the truth. We, as an institution, are also interested in lower costs that we can be able to work with. It all has to do with intellectual openness.

One of the interesting aspects I have found in Berlin is trying to understand how the city might still be divided. There seems to have been a lot 116

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of changes in the 1990s, specifically within the history of Künstlerhaus Bethanien. When you look at the art produced at the time, it was mostly autonomous art practice and in the 1990s there started to be an openness to the international art market from artists who worked within it. But there is always a reactionary component to that, with those who decide to reject this notion. Do you view Berlin as a divided city in terms of institutions or the way art is supported?

Yes and no. We have to think about the political situation before and after the wall came down. Before the wall came down, West Berlin was an island surrounded by the GDR and on the other side there was East Berlin. If we speak about West Berlin and the capitalist market, there was no art market per se because the federal government of Germany sponsored all the artistic activities in Berlin to make West Berlin a shop window. If you look back to the 1970s, you find that a group of private gallerists tried to initiate a kind of smaller art fair. It went well but this was not the big market we know from Cologne or Basel. From the beginning of the ‘70s into the ‘80s and ‘90s, the galleries tried to help initiate a commercial market in Berlin. The situation changed, it got better and better, but it never reached the high point of Cologne or Basel.

Now, there are more than 450 commercial galleries, but only a few, only 12-15 can make a buck. Only these 12 -15 are internationally connected and make big business. The others are struggling and surviving 117

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day-to-day. That is because there are no collectors in Berlin or East Germany surrounding Berlin. In the East there is Poland, also with no art market. And in the West you have Dusseldorf, Cologne, Munich, Hamburg, Brussels, and London, but the markets are also not in West Germany, except for Cologne, which is in a worse situation than in the past.

When the wall came down a lot of gallerists from Cologne and the region of Rheinland closed their galleries and moved to Berlin, but they were not really commercially successful. From what I know, you can only make money in Basel, or if you go to Frieze in London. Berlin is a real hotspot, but not for making money.

On the other hand, the situation in Berlin is like paradise. We have over 200 artist-run spaces here.

You have a large amount of subcultural activity. In the 200 of these artist-run spaces, you have DIY activities, bands, initiatives; every weekend there are new projects, it’s unbelievable. More and more people come here from all over the world and try to do something in Berlin. And when there are so many interesting people, other people from the outside want to be there too, turning it into a hotspot.

There are around 5000-6000 international and German artists working here. That’s the point. I think you can’t make money, but you can make a lot of interesting connections, and work in silence. But don’t believe in museums, or the commercial aspect, it would be better to have a commercial gallery outside of Germany. That’s what most artists do, they have their galleries in Norway or Switzerland, or wherever.

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Also the other aspect that we have to consider is that artists are modern nomads, permanently hopping from city to city. This is typical of the contemporary situation of most artists.

Another aspect that we understand is that we have very harsh competition between the non-commercial institutions as well as the commercial galleries. If we speak about money, there is always a difficult fight. If the city of Berlin is paying to make “Berlin Art Week” in October attractive, then there are only 5 - 7 institutions that are invited and there is no jury decision so you don’t know how it’s decided. It’s just a political decision, and this is very negative because it’s not a democratic forum. Some gallerists are very powerful.

They have international collectors and influence and with this power, they direct the whole scene. That’s why a lot of gallerists are demonstrating against each other. Have you noticed we have different gallery guides in Berlin? That’s because some gallerists say we are the best, you can’t be listed there because the quality of your artists is bad or you are a person who is bad. This is very negative. This infighting has a lot to do with money and personal relationships.

What about in the non-profit institutions, the alternative and artist-run spaces, isn’t there going to be a competitive aspect in getting government money since they are only surviving based on government funding?

Yes, if we speak about these 200 artist-run spaces, they have the chance to send applications to the government, who supports 7 out of the 200 a year.

Artists are also applying; there are over 400 119

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applications from visual artists for a yearly stipend and of those 400, only 15 - 18 can win. It’s an open competition, you can send your materials and there is a jury that changes every year so it is a functioning process.

What about Künstlerhaus Bethanien, what category do you fit into?

We are a non-commercial institute and we work for charity. The association is GmbH, meaning a limited company. So we have a tax reduction and we are not allowed to make profit. It is possible for us to work as a private company as we are allowed to sign contracts with private companies as well as the government. We are in between the commercial galleries, the artist-run spaces, the so-called Kunstvereine and the museums. There are no more than a dozen artist-in-residence centers in Germany.

In Berlin you have the DAAD program working under other principles and some artist-run so-called art houses.

There seems to be a strong legacy of the 1968 student uprisings. Berlin seems to be one of the few places where Occupy culture is still so active. Do you think the legacy is still relevant as an influential force?

Yes, it is very interesting to see that until now a lot of artistic activities in Berlin have been politically based.

The artists think as political individuals and have distinct programs in mind. It’s not the money they are after; they are interested in utopia. You can find art historians, curators, and other art world players doing great things for very little money. They think that their 120

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activities are important for good will, for the community, or their own purposes. There is a lot of energy poured into these programs.

But will it be sustainable with the financial crisis happening now in Europe? Do you think the situation will change?

I think you can find a lot of these moral aspects in different European countries. You have the American model and the European Model. If you speak about 1968, it is still relevant: we as the people have to act in a democratic way. We should control politicians, capitalism, everything, you should control the control.

This idea of how to change the world has been relevant since the emergence of the modern world and the age of the Enlightenment.

It seems like artists and institutions are very active in participating in this?

After the wall came down, after the end of the iron curtain all of these aspects of how to localize your utopian ideals came back. At first there was the communist revolution in Russia in 1917, then we had the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe after World War II, the changes in 1968-69, and finally the fall of the iron curtain and the wall coming down.

Everything was orientated on the political left spectrum. On the other hand, the end of communism in the East showed us that this ideology, including the dark legacy of the Stalinist dictatorship, the Berlin Wall and the GDR border regime couldn’t give us the key to change society. We learned that we had to find other solutions. This is also part of our permanent fight with the squatters and with other political left-wing 121

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initiatives in Berlin like the Black Block among others.

A lot of people think that communism could be the way, but we from other generations who lived under socialist conditions can let them know how it really was. These two visions are permanently clashing and Berlin is one of the cities, maybe the only city in Europe where you can still find the clash between East and West, capitalism and communism. If you go through the city; you can smell it, you can see it. You have the tracks of the tram in the East as for the longest time the West was only using buses. If you walk through the city, the space where the wall was built is still marked. You go through different time zones; you can feel it all around you. Especially if you speak to older people, you will understand that they all speak about yesterday and how it was in the DDR. This is typical of Berlin.

Do you think people want to uphold this divide?

Did it become significant enough that it has become part of the identity of the city?

I think it will change with the young generation, maybe it will be over in twenty or so years. But right now we still have divided zones. We have richer and poorer parts of the city.

Is that the new divide?

Yes this is the new divide.

It seems like a reiteration of the old conflict with new forces at play.

All of the world’s conflicts are visible in Berlin. At the moment we have conflicts with refugees and people living here coming from the outside. Think about the refugee camp currently set up at Oranienplatz. They 122

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have been invited by the Green mayor to stay but there are other more conservative groups that say this is not allowed. You can send your application to request refugee status, a new Asylum Law has to be discussed in the Bundestag, but it’s not ok to stay here in your tent in the center of the city. This could only be possible in Kreuzberg. Kreuzberg is not Berlin or Germany; it’s Kreuzberg.

Do you believe that Berlin is more or less disjointed or incomplete nowadays? Has it become unified since the wall came down or what may be the opposing forces at play?

Berlin has more dividing lines nowadays than in 1989, between the different institutions because of competition, between rich and poor, between East and West. Also between the more inner metropolitan parts of the city and the outer parts where the hectic Berlin ends and the cultural landscape of Brandenburg begins.

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Dysraphic City Exhibition took place at Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, Berlin 22 – 24 August 2013 Curators: Stephanie Han (AU) Rebecca Heidenberg (US) Masha McConaghy (CA) Inês Oliveira (PT) Juliette Premmereur (FR) Raphael Rogenmoser (CH) Patrícia Rosas (PT) Charlotte Van Buylaere (BE) Produced by: Node Center for Curatorial Studies www.nodecenter.org Director: Perla Montelongo Coordinators: Lauren Reid Signe Tveskov Intern: Saara Hannus Graphic Design: Vela Arbutina

Thanks to: All contributors, helpers and supporters Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon Künstlerhaus Bethanien Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien ZK / U Berlin – Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik 400 copies Printed in Berlin, August 2013 © 2013 The authors for the texts and images.

All poem extracts from pages 6, 14, 26, 46, 56, 84, 100: Bernstein, Charles. ‘Dysraphism’. The Sophist.

Charles Bernstein and Ron Silliman.

Los Angeles: Salt Publishing, 1987.

Full audio of the poem is available at: http://bit.ly/17Q8cng

Dysraphic City

Dysraphic City

Node Center for Curatorial Studies