Remake Berlin
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 Berlin? 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 The words “I am a Berliner”, uttered by John F. Kennedy in 1963, are no longer valid; at best, they would have to have been altered to “I am a New Berliner”.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 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: “The Berlin Republic” and Berlin’s political past; building sites – the creation of a new centre from the ashes – and the periphery of the outskirts; club culture and multi-cultural Berlin; football, cooking, and eating in the metropolis.
With Clegg & Guttmann, Astrid Klein, Rémy Markowitsch, Boris Mikhailov, Juergen Teller, Frank Thiel, Céline van Balen and Stephen Wilks.
The exhibition was curated by Kathrin Becker and Urs Stahel. A cooperation with Neuer Berliner Kunstverein and the Recontres internationales de la photographie, Arles.
This project was co-initiated and made possible by Bank Hofmann Ltd., Zurich.