Public Art in Berlin

Abstract

The Public Art in Berlin: selected projects chapter provides both an overview and research based on the Berlin works of different eminent artists. Examples of such works are Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s Houseball, a gigantic sculpture originally made for a performance of II Corso del Coltello for the Venice Biennale in 1985, John Chamberlain’s Turm von Klythie sculpture in the form of a tower of smashed car bodies situated on the lower-level floor of the atrium lobby of Quarter 205, and Stephan Balkenhol’s Big Man with Small Man (Balkenhol has developed a significant repertoire of public commissions worldwide, giving his figures a central role within contemporary art). One of the most influential modern artists from the second part of the twentieth century, Sol LeWitt, was commissioned to make his aluminum artwork Structure for Berlin in 1994. Frank Stella’s the Prince Frederick Arthur of Homburg, Keith Haring’s Boxers, and Otto Herbert Hajek’s Progression 73/3 (3 Multiple Elements) are some of the other projects featured in this chapter. This chapter incorporates interviews with Juan Garaizabal and Hubertus von der Goltz. Internationally renowned Spanish artist Juan Garaizabal talks in his interview about his Berlin work, Memoria Urbana Berlin, and explains that “originally it was a temporary project, an art installation with a large scale sculpture that recreates with steel and led lights the lines of the lost Bohemian Church in its original place and size. It was conceived as a symbol of tolerance and a memorial tribute to immigration. A huge space sketched on the traces of a lost heroic building.” Gate to Prenzlauer Berg, Encounters and Positions and Between Heaven and Earth at Tegel Airport by famous German artist Hubertus von der Goltz are two out of five of his projects featured in this book. The artist is interviewed about all five Berlin projects and reveals why the figures in his work are almost always balancing on beams positioned high in the air. The Bundestag Public Art Collection section within the Public Art in Berlin chapter includes a selection of several German government projects by eminent artists. This section introduction unveils the Reichstag, the symbol of German reunification, renovated by Norman Foster in 1999. Basic Law 49 by Dani Karavan is a wall of nineteen glass sheets along the Spree promenade containing the text of the nineteen fundamental rights (one per panel) from German Basic Law (in the original text from 1949) which is engraved on the glass sheets. BFD—Bundig Fluchtend Dicht (flush aligned impervious) by Berlin-based German artist Franka Hornschemeyer is composed of red and black iron lattice fences arranged in a spatial unity, appearing labyrinth-like. One of Germany’s most important postwar artists and the first German artist that depicted the history of National Socialism in his work, Gerhard Richter, was commissioned along with other artists to produce artwork for the renovated Reichstag building. His Black Red Gold monumental colored glass panel with six sheets at the entrance of the Reichstag building refers to the notion of the German national flag. Eduardo Chillida’s abstract sculpture Berlin symbolizes the union of East and West Germany, and it stands in the Court of Honour of the Federal Chancellery building near the River Spree. The Public Art at Potsdamer Platz section within the Public Art in Berlin chapter starts with Potsdamer Platz, a desolate place that resembled a wasteland during most of Berlin’s division period before it gained worldwide attention as the biggest building site in Europe in the 1990s. The main topic in introduction is the redevelopment of Potsdamer Platz. It features the Daimler Public Art collection at Potsdamer Platz, one of the most important German art institutions, and starts with the Daimler Art Collection’s objective and activities in Berlin. The public artworks featured here are Landed by Auke de Vries, The Boxers by Keith Haring, Galileo by Mark Di Suvero, Prince Frederick Arthur of Homburg (General of Cavalry) by Frank Stella, and The Riding Bikes by Robert Rauschenberg. The section entitled The City and the river—a renewed relationship depicts and analyzes three modern Berlin landmarks: Signalkugel by Berlin-based German artist Ulrike Mohr, a movable red sphere on a metal pillar which falls down every time a ship passes by; Molecule Man by American artist Jonathan Borofsky, a monumental installation composed of three gigantic aluminum figures situated where the River Spree is at its widest; and Badeschiff by Susanne Lorenz, a floating swimming pool located on the River Spree that became iconic soon after it was opened in the summer of 2004, situated on the border between the two Berlin districts of Treptow and Kreuzberg. This section incorporates an interview with Susanne Lorenz, in which she explains the Badeschiff project development.