A Conversation from the Post-Communist Universe

A discussion between Simon Rees, Diana Artus and Jan Serych.

Apexart (2009) Three Moons of Jupiter:A Conversation from the Post-Communist Universe. [Online]
 http://www.apexart.org/events/reestalk.php [14/04/2012]
Frieze (2009) Nostalgia: What’s the Role of the Past in Fashioning the Future? [Online]
 http://www.friezefoundation.org/talks/detail/nostalgia_whats_the_role_of_the_past_in_fashioning_the_future/ [14/04/2012]

Margot Honecker defends East Germany

Margot Honecker notes that "it is a tragedy that this land [East Germany] no longer exists" and that "there was no need for them to climb over the wall, to pay for this stupidity with their lives" as the protests in 1989 was driven by the GDR's enemies (Connolly, 2012).

ARD-Dokumentation: Der Sturz - Honeckers Ende [Online]
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmhXh61N-SI [03/04/2012]
Connolly, Kate (2012) Margot Honecker defends East German dictatorship [Online]
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/02/margot-honecker-east-germany-interview [03/04/2012]

Longing for Germany in exile

Margot Honecker, the GDR education minister between 1963 to the autumn of 1989 and the widow of former leader Erich Honecker, "lives with her mind in Germany" reportedly missing forests and mushrooms (Spiegel Online, 2012). 

Spiegel Online (2012) Exile in Chile: Former East German Leader's Wife Is Homesick. [Online]
 http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,813785,00.html [13/02/2012]

Invisible reservour of the GDR

Filmmaker Phil Collins talks about his installation and short film marxism today (prologue) (2010), new video use! value! exchange! (2010) and teachers he interviewed for his work. Collins highlights melancholy and loss in the former-GDR, where icons or symbols associated to individuals' biographical history fall away and create "invisible  reservour" [Collins, in BFI, 2012].

BFI [2012] Phil Collins. [Online] http://www.bfi.org.uk/live/video/590 [09/02/2012]

Lenin tour 2009

"l show Lenin to my contemporaries. And the 21st century to Lenin. Who will explain it to him?" (Herz, 2009: 78)

The city council in Dresden decided to remove its Lenin statue, a in a move to move away from the GDR past. In 2004, Rudolf Herz from a stonemason borrowed the decommissioned torso of Lenin and drove around Europe with two other anonymous statues. In the evening the truck would stop in cities asking artists, sociologists and economists to give their views on Lenin in the twenty-first century. The tour was filmed and photographed.

"I am searching for images, I am exploring the life in our globalised, capitalist world, am enquiring after memories and current views of utopia... Our journey takes us through contemporary everyday life, high-tech zones, and desolate industrial areas in the East and the West. A change of locale engenders a change of references and perspectives, Prage is not Zurich, Dresden is not Rome."  (Herz, in Museum Ludwig, 2012)

Herz, Rudolf (2009) Lenin w Trasie / Rudolf Herz. Lenin on Tour. [Online]
 http://www.erasedwalls.eu/erasedwalls.pdf [04/02/2012]
Museum Ludwig (2012) Rudolf Herz. Lenin on tour. [Online]
 http://www.museenkoeln.de/museum-ludwig/default.asp?s=2665 [04/02/2012]

Artimageslibrary (2010) Rudolph Herz Dachau Museumsbil
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/artimageslibrary/4954051621/ [04/02/2012]

The Utopian Spaceship

The social experiment "based on an initially utopian, then scientific, notion of the future: Communism" [Transmediale.de, 2012] is portrayed in the first GDR-Polish science fiction film, Der Schweigende Stern (First Spaceship on Venus) (1959) by Kurt Maetzig. Based on the early works of the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem the film projects "a vision of the future that would incorporate technological, social and psychological criteria" and "reveals how a global visual canon of utopian ideas was begun to be created in the 1950s".

Transmediale.de [2012] Matinee: Der Schweigende Stern. [Online]
 http://www.transmediale.de/matinee-der-schweigende-stern [01/02/2012]

GDR lost generation

Lothar de Maizière, the last GDR prime minister, attending the Korean-German Consultation Committee on Reunification, says the South Koreans are uninterested in what the North wants.

"They say: 'It's up to us in the South to solve the unity problem. We have the money.' Well, it was no different with us. That was, of course, the German problem. Afterwards there can be a very pronounced feeling of colonization... Historical ruptures always leave behind a lost generation." (De Maizière in Gutsch, 2012a)

De Maizière also notes that "the Koreans basically don't want unity to cost too much, and I tell them it will cost much more than you can imagine."

The last GDR defense minister Rainer Eppelmann, another German delegate, says "I've realized that the South Koreans are trying to figure out a way for the North Koreans to remain in the North after unification... The South Koreans were talking about border controls. I'll be damned! They seriously intend to close the border after the wall has fallen!" Kim Chun Sig, South Korea's deputy unification minister, says "that is also a very sensitive question. Let's put it this way: Perhaps the North Koreans could remain in their homeland, yes? And we will help them" (Gutsch, 2012a).

Kim doesn't seem to know whether the North Koreans want reunification, as he claims "we have no information about this... we don't know. We only have the defectors who tell us that the conditions in the country are very poor" (Gutsch, 2012b). According to Kim, around 35% of the 19 to 40-year-olds see Korean unification as an important political issue.

"The desire to unite is continuously ebbing. South Korea's older generation has long since lost touch with friends and relatives north of the border. The younger generation has never had a chance to meet. Viewed from the South, North Korea is a distant, uninhabitable planet. It's not even possible to hop across the border for a quick look, as West German schoolchildren used to do on field trips to East Berlin." (Gutsch, 2012b)

Gutsch, Jochen-Martin (2012a) Seoul Searching: Germans Give Pep Talks on Korean Unification. [Online]

 http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,807123,00.html [06/01/2012]
Gutsch, Jochen-Martin (2012b) Part 2: 'I Will Live To See Korean Unifiaction [Online]
 http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,807123-2,00.html [06/01/2012]

Documentation and live imprisonment at Hohenschönhausen

Franziska Vu's exhibition Detained [Inhaftiert] combines photographs with interviews of Stasi prisoners, to create an exhibition to reflect on recent German history. Vu's collaborative "live-imprisonment" (DPA/The Local, 2009) project in 2009 at the Stati prison Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Stasi prison, with former prisoner Carl-Wolfgang Holzapfel planning to live in a cell for a week, ended with Holzapfel's psychological distress [Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, 2012].

DPA/The Local (2009) Emotional strain ends former Stasi prisoner's live re-enactment [Online]  http://www.thelocal.de/society/20091102-22971.html [03/01/2012]
Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen [2012] 24/7 Stasi-Live-Haft [Online] http://www.stiftung-hsh.de/page.php?cat_id=CAT_1&con_id=CON_1516&page_id=867&subcat_id=CAT_1&recentcat=&back=
 [03/01/2012]
Kulturring in Berlin [2012] Inhaftiert/Detained. [Online]
 http://www.kulturring.org/konkret/inhaftiert/index.htm [03/01/2012]

B
Herschdorfer, Nathalie (2011) Afterwards: Contemporary Photography Confronting the Past. London: Thames & Hudson.
Rosenberg, Steve (2009) Reliving Stasi isolation - for art. [Online]
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8333148.stm [03/01/2012]

Postcards from lost countries

This clip shows an interactive project due to launch on 10 Jan 2012, made from a collection of 25 postcards sent from 11 East European countries between 1975 and 1991 (Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion, 2011). 

Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion (2011) Farewell Comrades! (Interactive) [Online]

 http://www.gebrueder-beetz.de/en/productions/farewell-comrades-interactive-wt [30/12/2011]

Artline Films & Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion [2011] Farewell Comrades. [Online]

 http://www.farewellcomrades.com/ [30/12/2011]

Delayed images of Palast der Republik

"The building was completely sealed," said Klapsch, "so an utter stillness lay over everything. It was a strange feeling." (Spiegel Online, 2010)

The photographer Thorsten Klapsch deliberately delayed publishing his Palast der Republik photographs until the demolition was completed, to avoid being seen as a "political gesture" (Spiegel Online, 2010).

Spiegel Online (2010) Memories of East Germany's Showcase: New Book Reveals Last Photographs of Berlin's Palast der Republik. [Online] http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,717697,00.html

 [07/12/2011]
Klapsch, Thorsten [2011] Palast der Republik. [Online]
 http://www.thorstenklapsch.de/architecture/palast-der-republik/ [07/12/2011]

Echo by Bettina Pousttchi

Bettina Pousttchi in 2009 created a photo installation of Palast der Republik on the facade of Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, a temporary gallery built where the Palast once stood. In her interview, Pousttchi talks about different times represented by two clocks, and her focus on media reality rather than factual reality. Pousttchi also notes that the Palast had changed its meaning after the fall of the Wall, to symbolising "reunified Germany and Berlin" (Pousttchi, 2009).

Echo (2009)

Pousttchi, Bettina (2009) Bettina Pousttchi: Echo / Temporäre Kunsthalle, Berlin / Interview. [Online]
 http://dai.ly/clCHFt [07/12/2011]

Pousttchi, Bettina (2009) Echo. [Online]
 http://www.pousttchi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94&Itemid=54
 [07/12/2011]

Forgotten town of Wünsdorf

In 1994, the population of Wünsdorf decreased from 60,000 to 6,000 as the Russian forces left. The town once hosted the headquarters of Soviet forces in East Germany, and was "a Soviet city in the heart of Germany" (Rüger, 2011) but is now forgotten.

"Walking around the empty rooms, halls and corridors, it takes some imagination to picture this rambling, deserted complex filled with thousands of people... The light falling on the faded pastel-colored walls and on the flaking paint of the doors give this military architecture a nostalgic atmosphere. Here and there, one finds objects left behind, such as a broken piano lying in the dust, its legs removed." (Rüger, 2011)

Rüger, Jörg (2011) Abandoned Soviet Outpost: Glimpses of a Forgotten, Forbidden City.
 [Online] http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,800658,00.html [03/12/2011]

Politics at Checkpoint Charlie

Stand off at Checkpoint Charlie in 1961 only affirmed "the Four Power status of the city," notes Colitt (2011). Military officials and diplomats of the Allies were able to cross the Wall after the hostile confrontation at the border 50 years ago, while Berlin remained divided. It takes 28 years for the Wall to open up.

Colitt, Leslie (2011) Berlin crisis: the standoff at Checkpoint Charlie [Online]
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/24/berlin-crisis-standoff-checkpoint-charlie [24/10/2011]

Wall perspectives

Exhibition at Museum Villa Schöningen.

Golden Section Graphics News (2011) Mauerperspektiven [Online]
 http://goldensectiongraphics.blogspot.com/2011/09/mauerperspektiven.html [14/10/2011]

Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung [2011] Jugend Opposition in der DDR [Online]
 http://www.jugendopposition.de/index.php?id=1 [14/10/2011]

Ampelmännchen turns 50

The East German pedestrian icon Ampelmännchen, proposed by traffic psychologist Karl Peglau, turns 50. It first appeared in Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse in East Berlin, and was once scheduled to be removed from East German pedestrian lights after the unification, to be replaced by an updated design. It has since developed into a commercial brand and a symbol of Ostalgia.

Ampelman.de [2011] We are the People [Online]
 http://ampelmann.de/html/geschichte_english.html [07/10/2011]
Ampelmanshop [2011] http://ampelmannshop.com/ [07/10/2011]
Gödecke, Christian (2011) Ampelmännchen aus aller Welt: Auf mein Zeichen: los!
 http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/topicalbumbackground/23604/1/auf_mein_zeichen_los.html [07/10/2011]
Gödecke, Christian (2011) Men in Hats: East Germany's Cult Pedestrian Signal Turns 50 [Online]
 http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,790133,00.html [07/10/2011]

DDR Disneyland

The giant Ferris wheel at Spreepark was erected in October 1989 for the 40th anniversary of the foundation of Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) - a month before the Berlin Wall was breached. "The borders were opened, and the whole of West Berlin became the preferred playground of the colour-hungry East Berliners." (Alas, 2010).

Alas, Joel (2010) Berlin’s Ruined Theme Park. [Online]
 http://joeldullroy.blogspot.com/2010/11/berlins-ruined-theme-park.html [23/09/2011]

Happiness gap between East and West

Is the glass half full?

Happiness Atlas shows people in West German states feel happier. Life satisfaction of men and women in the East are lower than in the West, which the survey claims is caused by the income gap between two regions and higher unemployment in the East. The survey also points out a slightly lower level of health and cultural activity.

Income based

The "Glückslücke" - or the happiness gap - is narrowing, according to the survey. In 1991 East Germany's satisfaction score was 6.0 compared to 7.3 points of the West Germans - the gap of 1.3 points. Today, it stands at its lowest since unification at 0.3.

Deutsche Post AG (2011) DPDHL Glücksatlas [Online] http://www.gluecksatlas.de/cms/index.html [21/09/2011]

Raffelhüschen, Bernd., Moog, Stefan., Vatter, Johannes., Köcher, Renate. & Oswald, Andrew J. (2011) Glücksatlas Deutschland 2011 (2011), p.34. Bonn and Munich: Deutsche Post AG and Albrecht Knaus Verlag. 

Siems, Dorothea (2011) Zufriedenheitsstudie: Vom Glück, ledig zu sein und in Hamburg zu wohnen. [Online]
http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article13616435/Vom-Glueck-ledig-zu-sein-und-in-Hamburg-zu-wohnen.html [21/09/2011]
The Local/emh (2011) Happiest Germans live in Hamburg. [Online] http://www.thelocal.de/society/20110920-37707.html [21/09/2011]

Full throttle unification

Following the only free election in the GDR history in 1990, the LA Times journalist Tyler Marshall reported "the pace of German unification once again moved toward full throttle" (Marshall, 1990). At his first post-election press conference Lothar de Maiziere announced, "as a clear sign of the growing together of Germany, the wall should be removed as fast as possible". De Maiziere's Christian Democrats had won the election, although short of a clear majority.

De Maiziere also called on the Social Democrats and the Free Democrats for discussions to join his "grand coalition", but did not invite the Democratic Socialist Party which won 16% of the popular vote, possibly reflecting "a level of anxiety among East Germans about the impending political changes" (Marshall, 1990). The Social Democrats seemed ready to compromise on their more measured pace toward unification.

"We will not disappoint the expectations of the East German voters," the West German prime minister Helmut Kohl said (Marshall, 1990).

Introducing the West German deutschemark into East Germany was viewed crucial step toward unification and "to halt the flow of East German refugees to the West" (Marshall, 1990) as a West German spokesperson "cautioned" against rapid monetary union. More than 140,000 East Germans had crossed to the West for permanent resettlement since the start of the year.

Share prices on the Frankfurt stock exchange soared 17 points and Deutschemark "strengthed against most major currencies and financial analysts voiced buoyant forecasts," Marshall (1990) wrote, "as municipal employees cleared away the debris of post-election celebrations in East Berlin".

Marshall, Tyler (1990) E. Germans Seek Coalition, Vow to Destroy Berlin Wall. [Online]
 http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-20/news/mn-650_1_east-german [19/09/2011]

Street names in Berlin

Vincent Trasov focused on history and changes by highlighting the phenomenon of the numerous street name changes, squares and underground stations in Berlin. "A direct expression of the rapid development of a once divided city into a vibrant metropolis" was installed nearby the former Berlin Wall.

"STRASSENBILD names the more than 60 streets, underground stations and squares which have been renamed in East Berlin. In the painting there is no direct connection between the old and the new name. They are placed at random. The work is a metaphor for the dissolve of a political system and the collapse of ideologies." [Trasov, 2011]

Trasov, V. [2011] Word Paintings. [Online]
 http://vincenttrasov.ca/index.cfm?pg=menu&filter=word%20paintings [21/01/2011]

Marxism Today by Phil Collins

Maxism Today (Prologue) (2010)

Phil Collins interviewed former Marxism teachers of the GDR, for his short film Marxism Today (Prologue). In the second room of the exhibition, wooden school desks were set up with headphones, with a screen in front, to allow visitors to experience a Marxism class delivered by one of the teachers Collins interviewed. 

Cornerhouse [2010] Phil Collins: Maxism Today. [Online] http://www.cornerhouse.org/art/info.aspx?ID=418&page=0 [07/11/2010]
Reinhardt, N. & Sultan, C. (trans.) (2010) British Artist Documents Fate of East German Marxism-Leninism Instructors. [Online]
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,702680,00.html [07/11/2010]