The exhibition "Diversity United" — a collaboration between Germany, France and Russia — was to travel around Europe. But an intervention from Moscow threw it off track.
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Political artworks at 'Diversity United' exhibition
On show at the former Tempelhof airport, "Diversity United" features some 400 works addressing themes such as freedom and dignity, dialogue and conflict.
The ideal of Enlightenment is spelled out in bright white neon letters. They stand out against a bare wall and stone floor, reminiscent of the inner courtyard of a prison. The association feels strengthened by the spikes that are typically used as a bird deterrent on building ledges and commercial signage. Is it liberty's way of protecting itself or is the message turned into an empty phrase?
Ekaterina Muromtseva is a Russian artist who lives and works in Moscow. Her posters are a testimony to the political unrest in her home country. Her larger-than-life, blood-red figures lead viewers to ask themselves whether they should remain distant observers of the protests or rather join in on them.
Image: Ekaterina Muromtseva/Foto Silke Briel
Mona Hatoum: 'Remains to Be Seen'
The Lebanon-born artist Mona Hatoum often works with allegories. In this work, the remains of a building "hang by a thread," with the symmetrical arrangement of the ropes contrasting with the fragmented stones. The collapse is in constant suspension, while the remains can still be seen.
From a distance, it looks like a large-scale painting, but "Winterreise" (Winter Journey) is actually a stage installation. In this grim and warlike landscape, Anselm Kiefer refers to representatives of German Romanticism such as Madame de Staël or Robert Schubert on snow-covered signs, while the name of the Red Army Faction terrorist Ulrike Meinhof appears on a bed on wheels.
Image: Anselm Kiefer/Foto Silke Briel
Olga Chernysheva: 'On the Sidelines'
In the former Soviet Union, workers were sometimes paid in kind. These chandeliers were given to the employees of a factory where they were made, as a form of payment. But they ended up on the side of the road. Chernysheva's seemingly surrealistic works document the poetry of everyday life, while commenting on society.
Image: Olga Chernysheva
Patricia Kaersenhout: 'Mea Culpa'
In her work, Dutch artist Patricia Kaersenhout focuses on questions of power and guilt. In "Me Culpa" she depicts people in business suits on their hands and knees, crawling in penance as defined by a Christian tradition through which pilgrims demonstrated their devotion to God through physical suffering.
The polarization of society can be observed around the world; too often, opinions on current issues seem to be divided into black and white categories. With this in mind, the Berlin-based artist Monica Bonvicini brings opposites together. The white neon tubes are dazzling, but can also be understood as a symbol of the Enlightenment. "Light Me Black" is a call to explore paradoxes and gray areas.
Image: VG Bild-Kunst/Foto Silke Briel
Lucy + Jorge Orta: 'Antarctic Village No borders'
For artist duo Lucy + Jorge Orta, the polar continent around the South Pole embodies utopian ideals: Despite different political systems, the signatory states of the Antarctic Treaty have committed to peaceful coexistence, to collaboration on scientific projects and to the preservation of Antarctica's natural resources. The tents with different flags stand for a peaceful world without borders.
Image: Courtesy the artists/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021
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Berlin is currently hosting what is, without a doubt, an extraordinary exhibition. It is an exhibition of superlatives: around 90 artists from 34 countries, showing some 400 works and exhibited in three huge hangars at Berlin's TempelhofAirport.
Famous artists such as Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz are represented, as are Sejla Kameric, Gilbert & George, Olafur Eliasson, Monica Bonvicini, Katharina Sieverding and Boris Mikhailov.
The lavish and costly "Diversity United" exhibition tackles a major subject: Europe. The curators have said they are searching "for the essence of the complex, fragile and changing project" that constitutes Europe.
Jürgen Grossmann, chairman of the exhibition project advisory board, stressed during the opening that the show impressively demonstrates how Europe is "far more than the sum of political and economic interests."
And what better way to convey that than through an exhibition focusing on diversity and a variety of perspectives? "There is no better means to combat nationalism and populism in this day and age," said Grossmann.
Those are no empty words typical of a speech given at an opening, however — as a look at recent developments makes clear.
An exhibition 'taken hostage'?
"Diversity United" was conceived as a European project on several levels. Not only were artists from a wide variety of countries to be represented to reflect "the artistic face of Europe," as the show is subtitled. Crucially, the idea was also that the exhibition would travel throughout Europe.
The opening was planned for November 2020 in Moscow. Then it was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID pandemic, and the opening was moved to Berlin. Then the exhibition was to travel to Moscow and on to Paris. The German Federal Foreign Office provided financial support for the exhibition.
Initially, Russian participation was clear: Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery was to collaborate with the Bonn-based association Foundation for Art and Culture as the main organizers. The gallery continues to be named as a cooperation partner, along with the Petersburg Dialogue forum, which was initiated in 2001 by then German chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Russian President Vladimir Putin as a bilateral forum to bring together civil society groups, think tanks and decision-makers to maintain dialogue.
Furthermore, President Putin was initially supposed to be a patron of the exhibition, along with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and French President Emmanuel Macron.
German organizers were thus shocked when they heard that Putin's state apparatus had effectively banned elements of the Petersburg Dialogue: Collaboration among the banned associations could result in prison sentences.
Walter Smerling, chairman of the Bonn Foundation for Art and Culture and a central figure in the organization of the exhibition, told German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that this step by the Russian government was unacceptable and that they could not imagine presenting the exhibition in Russia under such conditions.
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Exhibition as an expression of self-confidence
Unwittingly, the "Diversity United" exhibition has become a political pawn in a way that is clearly at odds with the title of the show. People on the sidelines of the June 8 exhibition opening in Berlin cautioned against the show being "taken hostage."
But German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier reacted in a decidedly statesmanlike manner. He praised the diversity of the themes addressed and explored as an "expression of the self-confidence of art and artists in Europe" who work "consciously beyond borders." An unmistakably political statement, given the backdrop of the show's cancellation in Moscow.
The question of state intervention in civil society platforms such as the Petersburg Dialogue, however, also points to the important role that art can play — even more so in times of political crisis: It can create spaces of interaction in which ambivalences are not only tolerated, but even understood.
Incidentally, the "Diversity United" exhibition could not have opened at a better venue to reflect historical progress.
During the Nazi era, prisoners of war became forced laborers for the "Luftwaffe" at Tempelhof Airport.
Later, the American and British so-called "raisin bombers" landed and took off here, supplying residents with food and other essential goods for survival during the Soviet blockade of West Berlin in 1948/49.
The airport has been closed since 2008, with various initiatives aiming to transform it into a meeting place.
The Berlin Airlift ended 70 years ago
How do you supply a city of over a million inhabitants for months from the air? The Western Allies in 1948/49 solved this question with the Berlin Airlift. Today, many places commemorate the spectacular relief action.
Visible from afar, an American C-47 floats in front of the façade of the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Kreuzberg. It has become a symbol for a dramatic chapter of Berlin's history and an unprecedented aid campaign: for 14 months, West Berlin was supplied from the air by the Western Allies after the Soviets had erected the Berlin blockade in June 1948.
After the Second World War, the four victorious powers divided Germany into occupation zones. Berlin, which lay like an island in the Soviet zone, was also divided into four parts. On June 24, 1948, the Soviets blocked all land and water routes to West Germany, and the power supply was also cut off. The Western Allies responded immediately.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives/WHA
Tempelhof Airport: a gateway to the world
US military governor Lucius D. Clay gave the order to create the Berlin Airlift on June 25, 1948. One day later, the first transporter landed at Tempelhof. The airport in the American sector became the most important hub of the airlift. Today there are guided tours through the disused airport, which became a legend during the Berlin blockade.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Fischer
Take-off and landings every minute
For 14 months, 2.2 million West Berliners were supplied from the air. The Allies developed a sophisticated system: three air corridors functioned as one-way streets, two for outward and one for return flights. Close to each other, up to five airplanes had room one above the other! Within 14 months, the airport welcomed a total of 278,000 landings and 2.3 million tons of freight.
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
The Air Force Museum at Gatow Airport
The second most important airport during the Berlin blockade was in Gatow, in the British sector. The British handled 42 percent of the Airlift landings here: Liquid fuel and supplies for the West Berliners were flown in, sick people and children were flown out. Today, the hangars contain an exhibition on military aviation in Germany.
Image: Militärhistorisches Museum Flugplatz Gatow
A child of the Airlift
Most tourists to Berlin today arrive in the German capital via Tegel Airport. Most don't know that this airport is also closely connected to the Airlift. Tegel was given its present shape with the hexagonal main terminal in the 1970s, but the foundation stone was laid in 1948.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Kembowski
The French feat of strength
Tegel Airport was the French contribution to the Airlift. In the autumn of 1948, the French Allies built what was then the longest runway in Europe, covering 2.5 km (1.5 miles), in just three months. They were supported by 19,000 Berliners, half of them women. Berlin's third airlift airport went into operation on November 5, 1948.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/UPI
The Candy Bomber heroes
The Berliners simply called the Allied transport aircraft "raisin bombers" or "candy bombers." Before landing, the US pilots dropped small aid packages on homemade parachutes to make the waiting children happy. The packages usually contained chocolate, chewing gum and sometimes raisins.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Allied Museum in Dahlem
Visitors to the Allied Museum in the Dahlem district, which belonged to the American sector, learn a lot about the history of the airlift and life in Berlin during the Cold War. The exhibition also shows how former enemies, after initial mistrust, became allies during the airlift.
Image: AlliiertenMuseum/Choda
Gifts from heaven
Canned food, dried fruit, milk powder, and coffee: Today the care packages are on display in the museum. At the time, they were a lifesaver for many Berliners. Private US aid organization Care chartered its own planes, which brought up to 1,000 care packages to the city every day. The contents, worth $15 (13 euro), fed a family for a month.
Image: AlliiertenMuseum/Choda
Green freight for the Tiergarten park
Even the first trees for the reforestation of the Tiergarten park and zoo were flown in via the airlift. After the winter of 1948, the park in the city center was almost bare, as the Berliners had processed the trees into firewood. On March 17, 1949 the reforestation began.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/H. Link
'People of this world...'
"...look upon this city!" In his speech in front of the destroyed Reichstag parliament building on September 9, 1948, Berlin's Mayor Ernst Reuter called on the world not to surrender the city to the Soviet Union. At the same time, he pleaded with the people of Berlin to persevere. On May 12, 1949, after 322 days, the Soviets abandoned the blockade of West Berlin.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Airlift Monument
78 pilots crashed during the airlift. This monument near the former Tempelhof Airport commemorates them since 1951. Officially called the Airlift Monument, Berliners have nicknamed it the "Hunger Claw." The three pillars actually symbolize the three air corridors. Copies of the monument are in Frankfurt am Main and Celle, which are the West German cities from which the planes took off for Berlin.
Image: picture-alliance/Arco Images/Schoening
The Freedom Bell in Schöneberg City Hall
The Berlin Airlift ended on May 12, 1949: the blockade of the Soviets had failed, the supply flights could be stopped. One year later, the Americans gave West Berlin the Freedom Bell. It was inaugurated by the "Father of the Airlift," General Lucius D. Clay. To this day, it rings daily at 12 noon and commemorates the spectacular rescue operation from the air.
Due to its varied historical nature, perhaps it is precisely the right meeting place for an exhibition that addresses Europe in many of its facets, including memory and conflict, power and equality, borders and boundaries, and insights and perspectives.
This article was adapted from German by Louisa Schaefer.