Israeli artist Yael Bartana lets an androgynous messiah figure roam through a utopian Berlin in the exhibition "Redemption Now" at the Jewish Museum.
Malka at the Brandenburg GateImage: Redemption Now/Jüdisches Museum Berlin
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It's always an interesting exercise to wonder what the world would look like today if past events had unfolded differently.
In Timur Vermes' satirical novel Look Who's Back, Adolf Hitler wakes up in present-day Berlin thinking the war has not yet ended; the Amazon series The Man in the High Castle, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, played out how the world would be divided if the Nazis had won World War II.
Experimenting with alternative history, reinterpreting it and placing it in a current context — that is also what the Israeli artist Yael Bartana has devoted herself to in the exhibition "Redemption Now," currently on show at the Jewish Museum Berlin.
A key work is the video "Malka Germania," in which the artist takes up the megalomaniac idea of the world capital Germania by Hitler's architect Albert Speer.
Bartana, who lives in Amsterdam and Berlin and whose father once told her never to set foot on German soil, is concerned with power, communities, utopia and gender roles. Her messiah figure Malka is androgynous.
Video installations abound at the exhibition Image: Yves Sucksdorff/Jüdisches Museum Berlin
"I feel there is a need for change in Germany, for a new vision for all the different minorities, including the Israelis living here," Yael Bartana argued in an interview on the museum's website. Her protagonist Malka walks through a Berlin with street signs in Hebrew.
Promise of better times ahead
The figure of a savior is associated with a promise that times will get better, a phenomenon observed in many contexts — in the current pandemic as well as, for instance, concerning the election of leaders like Hitler or, much later, Donald Trump. "Leaders disappoint us very quickly," says the artist.
Bartana has explored propaganda and its aesthetic characteristics for quite some time.
The video series "And Europe will be stunned" processes Polish-Jewish history: How do political movements react to the return of millions of Jews to Poland?
The multimedia artist presented it at the Polish pavilion at the 2011 Venice Art Biennale. Reality and fiction are blurred In Yael Bartana's works. There has been confusion about whether the Jewish Renaissance Movement, the fictional movement that called for Jews to return to Poland, is real. The Jewish Museum has added information about how that came about.
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What if women ruled the world?
The museum presents more than 50 of Bartana's early and more recent works, including video works, photographs, and light sculptures, grouped in seven sections. In "The Cycle of the End of the World" she looks at expectations of salvation, linking them to the mood of the end of time and the search for a Messiah in the Jewish tradition.
Whether redemption solves every problem is a question she asks in "The Study Room," for which Yael Bartana portrayed herself as, among others, the Austro-Hungarian publicist Theodor Herzl, asking, "What if Women Ruled the World?"
The exhibition "Redemption Now" will be on display in Berlin until October 10, 2021.
Daniel Libeskind's spectacular architecture
From the Jewish Museum Berlin to One World Trade Center in New York, star architect Daniel Libeskind is renowned for designing buildings that brilliantly confront history.
Image: picture-alliance/Eventpress
Jewish Museum Berlin
With the Jewish Museum Berlin, which opened in 2001, Libeskind achieved his major breakthrough. The zinc-coated building, erected on a jagged floor plan reminiscent of a fractured Star of David, has since become a Berlin trademark that symbolically stands for the ongoing debate about the gigantic vacuum left behind by the Holocaust in German-Jewish history.
Image: picture-alliance/Eibner-Pressefoto
Military History Museum, Dresden
Libeskind has also unmistakably left his mark on this museum which focuses on another chapter of German history. The museum dedicated to the military history of the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, was not designed to glorify Germany's army, but rather to document its violence. It also confronts visitors with their own potential for violence.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Breaking with the past
The main building, originally erected in the second half of the 19th century, was redesigned over seven years by Libeskind and opened in 2011. He split the original building with a wedge-shaped installation. It symbolizes a break with the traditional portrayal of history, while alluding to the bombing of Dresden in February 1945.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Leuphana University, Lüneburg
The central building of the Leuphana University of Lüneburg is another UFO designed by Daniel Libeskind. With its steel and glass facade and its slanted lines, the building is bound to become a pilgrimage location for architecture fans. It cost nearly €100 million to build and opened in 2017.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/P.Schulze
Imperial War Museum North, Manchester
The outpost of the Imperial War Museum London, this museum designed by Libeskind opened in 2002 and has since become an integral part of Manchester's skyline. The aluminium-coated building is located on the site heavily bombed by the Germans during the Manchester Blitz in 1940. Typical of the architect's style, Libeskind designed a space leading to a feeling of disorientation.
Image: Imago/IPON
Denver Art Museum
The rapid growth of this city inspired Libeskind to create a building that seems to expand continuously. Surrounded by the breathtaking Rocky Mountains, the architecture of this art museum enables visitors to sense the connection between culture and nature. Inaugurated in 2006, the museum — like many Libeskind buildings — has become a city landmark.
Image: Imago/UIG
Mons International Congress Xperience
The convention center in the Belgian city of Mons, completed in 2015, was also designed to allow visitors to look outside thanks to its vertical openings in the facade. Here, the architect did not work with aluminium, but instead with robinia wood. Visitors also enjoy a unique view over the city from several roof terraces with a lot of greenery.
Image: Imago
Ground Zero, New York
Who, if not Libeskind, would be able to create locations that can express deep traumas in architectural forms? That also holds true for Ground Zero, the site where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center used to stand before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. But the Freedom Tower conceived by the architect, himself a resident of New York, became...
Image: Silverstein Properties
One World Trade Center, New York
... the One World Trade Center — a far cry from Libeskind's original idea. There were arguments surrounding the design and the use of the building, as well as Libeskind's fees, according to the "The New York Times." At least one thing has survived these disagreements: Libeskind's concept for the huge area once filled by the Twin Towers.
Image: picture-alliance/B. Beytekin
Villa in Datteln, Germany
Libeskind had planned this building as a private home that, since 2011, has been used as an extraordinary reception hall for the company Rheinzink. It took only six months to erect the villa in the town of Datteln, in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The idea behind it was to construct a building that seems to be growing out of the earth, like a crystal.
Image: Daniel Liebeskind
Reflections, Singapore
Libeskind can just as skillfully design luxury buildings. The project "Reflections" in Keppel Bay, Singapore, consists of six towers and 11 villa apartments, with 1,129 single apartments, all offering an exclusive view over the ocean and the city. Alternative energy sources, such as solar panels and water filters, have added to the sustainability of the project.
