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Report from Germany
by Barbara Weidle
Berlin’s most special dinner invitation (for paying
guests) during the last few weeks was definitely Alma Mahler-Werfel’s
127th birthday party at Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince Palace)
Unter den Linden. For twenty-five evenings, Alma Mahler (1879–1964),
famous as the “widow of the four arts,” celebrated
with her husbands—composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter
Gropius, writer Franz Werfel—and lovers like the painter
Oskar Kokoschka as well as 200 other guests at the classicist
palace where Germany’s last emperor, Wilhelm II, was
born in 1859.
To experience Joshua Sobol‘s polydrama Alma – A
Show Biz ans Ende, about the life and work of one of the most
famous femmes fatales of the 20th century, was very unusual,
spectacular. No wonder most performances were sold out. The
decoration, atmosphere, and acting were like a time trip to
Vienna of nearly a hundred years ago; yet, even as you walk
through the elegant palais, following one of the actors, you
still experience recent German history, since the building
was restored in 1968/69 and used as a guest house by the East
German Government. Indira Ghandi and Fidel Castro stayed there.
Back in the twenties, the Kronprinzenpalais was Germany’s
first museum for contemporary art. Paintings by Oskar Kokoschka,
Lyonel Feininger, Franz Marc, Edvard Munch, Erich Heckel,
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Max Beckmann were shown there. Alfred
Barr Jr. was impressed by the idea and used it as a model
for the foundation of the MoMA in 1929. In 1990 the German
reunification agreement was signed at this place.
And now you can sit next to Gustav Mahler during his famous
meeting with Sigmund Freud in Amsterdam; you can follow Franz
Werfel on a trip to Palestine (by bus through the city of
Berlin); you can watch a desperate and wild Oskar Kokoschka
in Vienna trying to persuade Alma to have the baby she was
expecting from him. Paulus Manker, actor (Oskar Kokoschka)
and director, is somewhat obsessed by his subject, otherwise
it would not have been possible for him to succeed in performing
the play in Vienna, Venice, Lisbon, Los Angeles and Berlin
with such power and energy. His performances are always in
places that have something to do with Alma’s life, only
in cities where she had lived. Next and last on the list would
be New York City, where Alma Mahler died in 1964. Paulus
Manker is working on that.
Stepping out of the Kronprinzenpalais, close to Bebelplatz
where the books of German and Austrian Jewish writers went
up in flames in 1933 (Werfel’s were among them), a huge
silver-colored tower of books with the names of Friedrich
Schiller, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Hermann Hesse, Thomas
Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe inscribed
on their spines, a so-called sculpture, brings you back into
the real Germany of 2006, where the soccer world championships
start in June. Resembling a bad copy of a Claes Oldenburg,
this object is part of a project in Berlin called “The
Walk of Ideas.” It is supposed to inform tourists that
a lot of inventions, like modern book printing, came from
this country. A big Aspirin (“Milestone of Medicine”)
and a “Modern Football Shoe” close to the Reichstag,
“The Automobile” at the Brandenburg Gate, and musical
notes that look like autoscooters (“Masterpieces of Music”)
at the Gendarmenmarkt symbolize these milestones—“the
richness of ideas and the spirit of invention which characterize
Germany’s composers, writers, scientists, engineers and
perfectionists” as the organizers write, in a rather
simplistic way that reminds one of advertisement more than
of art. And it is no surprise that it is impossible to find
out who made these “sculptures.”
The idea behind the project comes from an advertising agency,
and a lot of corporations are supporting it. The socalled
sculptures serve to present a new plastic material (“Neopor“)
that is coated with a special new paint by one of Germany’s
biggest chemical enterprises (BASF), which of course is one
of the project’s partners. All the objects are very tall,
up to 35 feet, and weigh as much as 20 tons, and they are
displayed throughout the city more or less at random. They
make you wonder where the spirit of invention has gone in
Berlin.
Public space in Germany is often treated very badly, without
feeling for proportion or style. Another example is Bonn,
where the Guggenheim Museum is part of a rather atrocious
campaign that destroys the possibility of public space as
an aesthetically satisfying experience: As the museum prepares
to present a huge part of its collection from late July until
January 2007 at the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle and the Kunstmuseum
in Bonn, the Guggenheim (together with its partner in Bonn)
has already embarked upon a ridiculous brain-washing campaign:
“THE GUGGENHEIM IS A POINT OF VIEW,” “IMAGINE
A MUSEUM WITH NO WALLS,” “THE GUGGENHEIM IS THE
AGENT FOR POPULAR CULTURE” (surprise, surprise), “THE
GUGGENHEIM IS NOT A PLACE,” “IMAGINE YOUR OWN MUSEUM,”
“IMAGINE A MUSEUM IN CONSTANT MOTION.” These trivial
statements are written on banners (23’ x 14’) hanging
between seven of the sixteen Corten-steel columns that are
partly in front of Gustav Peichl’s Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle.
Actually the columns symbolize the 16 German states, as the
architect pointed out at the opening of the building in 1992.
The banners visually lock up the space between the Kunsthalle
and the Kunstmuseum—the airspace at the entrance of the
piazza—in a very rude way. The architect is afraid that
water can get into the columns through the holes drilled to
attach them. Of course he was not asked and is strictly against
the banners. But this does not help. They are there and will
stay until the show is over.
At Bonn’s Rheinisches Landesmuseum the whole front wall
(actually of glass) is decorated with a banner for “Samurai
Blue,” the Japanese soccer team, with an advertisement
for a well-known Japanese beer and an even better known German
manufacturer of soccer shoes. World championship again. The
Japanese team will be staying in Bonn for the duration of
the championship. Soon one will be able to eat sushi at the
museum’s restaurant, sit on the brand new wooden terrace
and imagine a more sensible approach to public space. How
about that?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara Weidle is an art critic and curator. She lives in
Berlin and Bonn.
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