Berlin-Mitte in September 2000. In the letter boxes door-to-door deliveries from
the Republicans. O-tone: 'Unity and justice and freedom are increasingly
threatened by political correctness'. On the same day, a demonstration for the
preservation of the Republican Palace by the old Socialist Unity Party of Germany
and people from peripheral slab housing suffering from nostalgia for the old East
Berlin.
What is BerlinNULL One thing is certain: today's Berlin can only be described as a
collection of diverse phenomena. The words I am a Berliner, uttered by John F.
Kennedy in 1963, are no longer valid; at best, they would have to have been
altered to I am a New Berliner. Berlin has mutated into New Berlin, a city about
whose identity and character no-one is quite sure.
For the Winterthur Fotomuseum's project Remake Berlin, eight international
artists and six international writers were invited to work on the theme of Berlin.
The projects by the artists are devoted to specific themes that highlight an
individual view of one aspect of the city. Briefly, the subjects are the following:
- Clegg & Guttmann and The Berlin Republic - Berlin as the new capital
- Astrid Klein and history - Berlin's political past
- Rémy Markowitsch and the theme of food - cooking, ordering and eating in the
metropolis
- Boris Mikhailov and football - workers' football, free-time football, Western and
Eastern football
- Juergen Teller and club culture in the year 2000
- Frank Thiel and building sites - the creation of a new centre from the ashes
- Céline van Balen and multi-cultural Berlin
- Stephen Wilks and the periphery of the outskirts
The exhibition is accompanied by the publication of a substantial book (in
German/English) with texts by: László Földényi, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Paul Virilio,
Thomas Kapielski, Monika Maron and Matthias Zschokke.
Curators of the exhibition are Kathrin Becker and Urs Stahel.
This project has been co-initiated and made possible by Bank Hofmann Ltd., Zurich.
IMAGE:
Stephen Wilks,
Untitled, 1999
(80 x 100 cm)
C-Print under Plexiglass, on Aluminum
© Stephen Wilks
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