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Every day near the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, the German anthem, in the Niederkirchnerstraße, sounds from morning to evening, except on Tuesdays. It sounds not from the Berlin House of Representatives, but from the other side of the street, and although the tune of Haydn is right, the text remains incomprehensible. Because in the sound installation of Emeka Ogboh, ten African languages blend into a polyphonic choir, all of them singing the song of the Germans, on Igbo and Yoruba, on Kikongo and Lingala.
Each of the voices echoed through one of ten loudspeakers on the first floor of the Martin Gropius Building, on the north side of which ran the Berlin Wall for many years. Who now settles in the circle of Ogboh's floor boxes, can not help thinking about whose voice is heard. What assimilation means is how much language is crucial for belonging in our seemingly globalized world, and who is marginalized in it.
Exclusion, barriers, separations - that's what the exhibition "Through Walls", a smart, politically insistent show in the Gropius Building, is all about. The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is the occasion to look away from the historic 9 November 1989 and to turn to questions of the future: where are we building social walls, where did society split today?
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Limits and stalemate situations
Instead of sound, a performance by the Spaniard Dora Garcia relies on haunting gestures. Two performers look each other in the eye, they are not allowed to leave two circles drawn on the floor while they move without losing eye contact. Who is staring down here? Where is there room for compromise? In "Two Planets Have Been Colliding For Thousands Of Years", two people engage in an endless negotiation that can be observed here for up to six hours a day.
José Bechara is also interested in non-communication and negotiating boundaries: For the installation "Ok, Ok, let's talk", he filled a room with 50 wooden dining tables, some of which are slightly inclined and leave gaps in the middle of the room Tables protrude from the backs of two chairs that face each other from afar. Who sits at these negotiating tables, is stuck. There is no before, no back.
How these stalemate situations feel so that the organizer of "Through Walls" should have their own experiences. Last year, the Berliner Festspiele had planned the most absurd art project of all times to keep alive the memory of the division of Europe: in "DAU Freiheit" the Russian filmmaker Ilya Khrzhanovska wanted to rebuild the Berlin Wall. But the walk-in mini-DDR had failed due to regulatory barriers.
Fainting and consternation brings this show with it, sometimes drastically, but often very carefully. Hardly any work screams its political slogan in the face of the visitor. But all have one thing in common: When the wall was opened in 1989, the general view was that the history of a breakup had ended, one polarity had dissolved. The works in "Walking Through Walls" show that barriers and divisions in society have continued on other levels.
Included in the queue
Artist Dara Friedman makes it so angry that in a video work with a bullwhip on a wall, until it seems to crumble. Smadar Dreyfuss has recorded for the disturbing video installation "Mother's Day" how in the Golan Heights Syrian students with megaphones scream personal messages to their mothers who live on the other side of the military-guarded fence. The Mother's Day Greetings come every year for a demonstration.
Finally, on the anniversary of the fall of the Wall, a wall will be formed of people: In "Zeitgeist" by Héctor Zamora, hundreds of people form a queue through the Gropius Building - a reality that will deny visitors access to certain parts of the building, separate them or lock them up ,
Constant change of perspective runs through the whole exhibition. "The most dangerous walls remain those in the minds of the people," says the curator duo Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath. "We transport here therefore the feeling of being locked up and being separated." Direct experience is more important than dialogues between professionals. Empathy for people in other situations is their goal, the curators explain, as the traditional patterns of identity disappear. "If the art manages to let people accept each other a little more, then much would be achieved and walls would fall."
Exhibition : "Walking through Walls", Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, until 19 January 2020
