Art at BER: "I had the feeling it didn't look so good"

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The flares of Olaf Nicolai's work of art "Gadget" react to the flight protocol

Photo: Alexander Obst / Marion Schmieding / Berlin Brandenburg Airport

SPIEGEL:

Mr. Nicolai, your large light sculpture adorns the double-decker boarding bridge to the Airbus 380 planes. Did you expect your contribution to be visible?  

Nicolai:

In May 2012, during a taxi ride, I heard on the radio that the opening of the airport would be postponed, that was two weeks before the planned inauguration.

Everything had been completed on time on my part with no small effort - and then this: no, not now.

"April, April" in May.

SPIEGEL:

How was that for you?

Nicolai:

When you work on a work of art for so long and so intensely, you naturally want to see it, you would also like others to see it.

Then, two or three years later, I had the feeling that it didn't look so good - the airport might be torn down and the pearl necklace made of flares would be a nice ruin jewelry.

I expected an opening again at some point, but I had doubts whether the artistic work, and especially mine, would still attract attention.

To person

Icon: enlarge Photo: Gian Ehrenzeller / picture alliance / Keystone

Olaf Nicolai

, born in 1962, is one of the most famous artists of his generation, he exhibited at the Documenta and represented Germany at the Venice Biennale, where he let boomerangs fly from the roof of the national pavilion.

For the Berlin airport BER he created a large light sculpture in the form of a multi-row pearl bracelet that adorns the double-decker passenger boarding bridge to the Airbus 380 planes.

SPIEGEL:

Why?

Nicolai:

My work relates directly to the processes in air traffic; the large spheres that are wrapped around one of the glass passenger bridges react to the planes' schedule with the various light phases.

Technically it is quite

and also sensitive for security.

I feared that this would no longer be feasible.

But the airport manager who has been in office since 2017, Mr Engelbert Lütke Daldrup, has taken on the matter.

Its predecessors weren't that cooperative.

When someone said at the time that Berlin had to buy a new museum, I liked to joke - we already have it, just means the airport.

SPIEGEL:

And now everything will still be okay?

Nicolai:

Somehow yes.

The work will now actually react to the processes at the gate.

A connection with the tower's flight logs is established for this purpose.

We had prepared everything in 2012, but never received flight logs.

Actually, that was a clear indication that the opening was not imminent.

But I just didn't realize it back then, just thought it was impossible.

Now we'll do the fine programming in the next few days!

That is more than I dared hope from my previous experience.

And for that I can only thank the people at the airport who made it possible.

SPIEGEL:

Your shining pearl necklace is based on flight times, even if they change, you can react.

So you're officially allowed to hack the system?

Nicolai:

We are linked.

There are a few other security issues.

We checked the brightness of the flares in test runs; after all, the processes in the tower must not be disturbed.

These pearls are each more than a meter tall, you can see their light from the plane, at the same time they shine through the glass panes of the bridge and the window front into the building.

Four phases are programmed, four illuminated images: a first for boarding, a second for departure, a third for landing and a fourth when the guests disembark.

SPIEGEL:

Now it is precisely the gate that was intended for the - now unpopular - large-capacity aircraft Airbus 380.

Nicolai:

I was invited to the competition for this gate specifically.

It runs over two floors and has a special construction; my work can only be installed there for static reasons.

You cannot put the pearl necklace on any other bridge.  

SPIEGEL:

The days of this super jumbo are numbered, production will be stopped.

Nicolai:

The bridge should be used - already at the inauguration next week.

Even if it will no longer be the A380, planes will arrive there, albeit less often than expected.

You also wear the jewelry when you don't go out that often.

SPIEGEL:

You create a connection to society with many works and projects, for example you had a text by Sigmund Freud translated into Arabic.

What does this shining pearl necklace have to do with society?

Nicolai:

The work is called "Gadget".

Not "pearl necklace" or "jewel".

But "gadget".

It has a lot to do with Berlin in 2010, when the city officially believed it had to present itself as a place where you can have fun, which you absolutely have to visit.

And travel was part of it, purely economically.

"Gadget" means: a nice, sophisticated gimmick.

A necessary and at the same time cool accessory.

Hence this title.

For my work, I think it is good if it stimulates the question: What effects does this have, what happens when I enjoy, when I fulfill my wishes, when the entertainment works?

Does it perhaps have consequences that I don't really like, that I would like to forget when I enjoy it?

That you feel how you are involved in the production of contradictions that move you - I want to make that tangible.

SPIEGEL:

As an artist, do you actually like this airport?

Nicolai:

He's impressive.

It's very good, functional airport architecture, according to international standards as they were generally a decade ago.

But I will miss the airport in Tegel, quite melancholy.

Just a "gadget" would have been difficult to install there.

Icon: The mirror