In the charged spaces of the former courthouse on Lehrter Straße, the inspiration comes from other rebels, who tried their best to get out of the shadows. We witness the organized rebellion of a group of women against the Stasi, and we are almost literally swept away by a powerful installation on the process that the prominent socialist and antimilitarist Karl Liebknecht had to go through because of his ideals. This work reminds us that law can be unfair, and everyone can potentially fall victim to it.
At KW we remain mesmerized by a touching picture by Steve McQueen, who uses the simple yet powerful charme of a flower to discuss the colonization of Grenada. Particularly unsettling is also the work by Chaw Ei Thein. Dealing with the consequences of the military coup in Myanmar by showing solidarity with her former performance partner who got imprisoned, the artist restages his powerful performance, The Fly.
Her work is a masterpiece of unsettlement, talking about violence and imprisonment while showing empathy and perseverance. All the artworks presented for this year's Biennale show us the power that multitude holds in itself, and the importance of being dissonant, helping the many fugitives around us to find a safe space.
Willy Brandt Haus decided to focus on the same topic, the troubling political situation in Myanmar, with a dedicated exhibition, State of Uncertainty, running until September 21.
A state that is going through so many unsettling things, but living in the shadows for the global community, Myanmar is a country that is currently run by a military dictatorship and which was devastated by an earthquake this year. The exhibition uses the work of three artists, Wolfgang Bellwinkel, Nora Bibel and Vincent Haiges, to bring to the spotlight this troubling situation. Wolfgang Bellwinkel’s documentary work, Vast Land, focuses on the buildings of the country, silent witnesses and victims of the uncertain situation that the population lives in.
He underlines the shadows inscribed on the city landscapes of the first two capital cities, Mandalay and Yangon. We are then projected into the streets of the new capital, Naypyidaw, a shadowless and eerie city that feels like a ghost town. Only the military elite and their families live there, dividing the country and its unjust rulers even more deeply. Nora Bibel’s Myanmar's Driving Force is a photographic project which focuses on a generation of democratic activists and their fates. Each of them is carefully portrayed in their surroundings, and the accompanying texts tell us the hardship of their life stories, often marked by wrongful imprisonment and precarity. Yet they find the strength to keep on fighting, hoping for their country to finally be acknowledged and changed.
For his project, The revolution takes a little longer, Vincent Haiges went to live with a group of Burmese people, who gave up their lives to take up the armed struggle against the military junta. The photographer depicts them in their daily routines, wondering what kind of vision of their country they fight for, showing us how the reality of armed conflicts is far more complex and multifaceted than we think.
“And the West? We have been asked this question time and again: Why is the West so little interested in Myanmar? Where is the support for a population that is rising up against a brutal military regime? The answer is uncomfortable. Ultimately, it boils down to geopolitical priorities. In the midst of multiple global crises, Myanmar is not high on the agenda of political decision-makers in Brussels – let alone in Washington.” – Vincent Haiges
The Museum Europäischer Kulturen is currently hosting an exhibition on a similar topic – the impact of dictatorship – but discussing it in a different time and place. Vamos a la Playa, Vacations under Franco deals with the many years of dictatorship that Spain went through, investigating the role of mass tourism in it. The exhibition is part of the European Culture Days, presenting a different European country, region or city every year.
Catalonia has always been a popular region for tourism, yet it was also one of the most oppressed regions during the dictatorship, for its relentless fight for autonomy and independence. This peculiar condition was exploited by Franco, who wanted the country to make money with tourism, while crushing the opposition and trying to present his country in a normal light to the foreign visitors.
Particularly stunning is the paired installation Convivència (Coexistence) by artists Annette Riemann and Tom Theunissen. Their work deals with the peculiar coexistence that happened between the local population and the hippie communities in Formentera and Ibiza. Through a touching video depicting her childhood there with her sister, Riemann reflects on both the light and the shadow of her young years, as a witness of this peculiar situation. Dealing with the same contrast is the work by Tom Theunissen, who tells the story of the ruins of a prisoners’ camp in Formentera.The exhibition reminds us of the shadows of a difficult past that is not so far away from us, reminding us of the importance of finding light and freedom against the most difficult odds.
Galerie Judin decided to make us jump directly into the darkness in ourselves with the exhibition E.M.D.R. by Lydia Pettit. Her paintings are based on her personal experience with E.M.D.R., Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a specific type of therapy that targets hidden traumatic memories and helps bring them to the surface and then deal with them. Coping with her own trauma and empathizing with the countless Palestinian victims in Gaza, the artist decided to immerse herself in this negative space, and to embrace the shadows. Her paintings are filled with black liquid, a disturbing and haunting material that envelops her, a metaphor of her anguish. Yet she is able to face it head on this time, gaining back some control and a bit of hope.
“I aimed to show my journey here, for you – the experience of a recovered memory, the fear of the past, the potential of something going wrong, how it feels to look at yourself as a child and realize you blame them for something that wasn’t their fault. The fear and excitement of peeling back the layers and finding what truly disturbs you, what keeps you planted in the past, but also what lies you tell yourself that you can now imbue with truth. And, through the void of trauma and shame, moments of peace and clarity that lead to acceptance.” – Lydia Pettit.
Berlinische Galerie is dedicating an extensive retrospective to artist Marta Astfalck-Vietz ( 1901-1994). During the Golden Twenties, the avant-garde artist became a photographer, gaining recognition for her mysterious self-portraits. Her practice deals with shadows in the most immediate and powerful way.
As both photographer and model, she was able to create stunning and innovative pictures. Sometimes they are filled with humor, while they often question the role of the female body in society, dealing with feminism first hand. Incorporating theatre, masks and grotesque elements she was able to create a peculiar style, while addressing social and political issues.
The exhibition is also presenting for the first time her watercolors of plants. Another relationship we always tend to forget and take for granted – the plant world is a complex and incredible ecosystem, on which we rely for living. Taking it out of the shadows, she became interested in their dance-like grace, connecting them to us once again.
All her work is in itself a constant dance, that she played with herself, with her surroundings, with the social condition of her time, reminding us that sometimes, in the darkness of the shadows, we can find an answer to our most intimate and important questions.
Dealing with incredibly serious topics, but setting them in an unexpected place, is the exhibition PARASITE, organized by TROPEZ in the Humboldtian Summer Pool. The artworks are scattered across the whole location and they play hide and seek with us. With both humor and seriousness we are confronted with the concept of being a parasite. What does it mean to parasite someone or something? Can it also be a positive role? TROPEZ itself feels like a parasite in its location – a chill public swimming pool – creating moments of reflection for us to notice.
Particularly interesting are the works by Melike Kara and T Vinoja. Kara deals with the struggles of the Kurdish diaspora, using a bench covered with a series of cloths with pictures imprinted on them. As a member of a community who was forced to leave their land and live a scattered life, the artist uses this work to preserve a sense of stability, identity and connection. T Vinoja's work, Homecoming, tells us through apparently delicate textile drawings the horrific impact of the civil war in Sri Lanka. These garments become some sort of shelter, both physical and metaphorical, and the drawing inscribed in them remind us of how many people are currently deprived of food and shelter. It is a powerful reminder, if one thinks it's hanging on the window of the pool's bar.
Making things a bit lighter and interactive, is another site-specific installation, a mini-golf course created for the exhibition, with works by five artists. Their playfulness is another way of dealing with the discomfort, and questioning once again the meaning of the word parasite.
All the artworks aim at celebrating nonconformity and creating interference, giving space for new ideas, while laying down in the shadows of a tree during a Berlin summer at the pool.
