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Simon Menner: Images from the STASI Secret Archives (Berlin)

As recently announced at Wartist, from 17 January until 3 March 2011, Simon Menner presents “Images from the Secret STASI Archives”¹ as part of the exhibition series “Rendezvous mit Kunst” (meeting with art) at Berlin’s restaurant Diekmann. The exhibition of 26 authentic photographs is part of a bigger cycle that the artist selected from images he was being provided by the “Bundesbeauftragten für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik” (BStU)².

Stasi is the short form of “(Ministerium für) Staatssicherheit” ((Ministry for) State Security), the East-German state security service. ↩
Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives ↩

Computer Games Museum is Reopening (Berlin)

In 1997, the Computerspielemuseum Berlin (Computer Games Museum Berlin) was opened as the first global collection on the digital entertainment culture. Unfortunately, the exhibition was closed in 2000 for the lack of space and funding. Finally, on 21 January 2011, the museum will be reopened by its founding director Andreas Lange at a new location.

Fire Missile! (© Computerspielemuseum Berlin)

Opening: Simon Menner – Images from the Secret STASI Archives (Berlin)

From 17 January to 3 March 2011, Simon Menner presents “Images from the Secret STASI Archives”¹ within the framework of “Rendezvous mit Kunst” (meeting with art) at Berlin’s restaurant Diekmann. Also in this country, surveillance by images and video is increasingly becoming ubiquitous. But what does “Big Brother” really see? How banal is the “gaze of evil” of an oppressive regime, and how obvious is its terror?

MfS-HA-VIII-Fo-0525-Bild-0002 Giving Secret Signs

Stasi is the short form of “(Ministerium für) Staatssicherheit” ((Ministry for) State Security), the East-German state security service. ↩

Documentary “Remembering the Children” (Berlin)

On the occasion of the 66th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp on 27. January 2011, Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus e.V., Institut Français Berlin and Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie e.V. present the documentary “Remembering the Children” (La Mémoire des Enfants) by Hannes Gellner and Thomas Draschan, made in 2007. The film deals with the fate of Jewish children under the Vichy regime. The film attemps to fathom how it was possible (in human, legal, and administrative terms) that between 1942 and 1944 more than 11,400 Jewish children were deported from France to Auschwitz on the initiative of the French authorities.

Filles Reisz, Archives Serge et Beate Klarsfeld

“Historical Picture” at Kunstraum t27 (Berlin)

From 11 December 2010 to 9 January 2011 (and as already announced here), the Berlin-based gallery Kunstraum t27 celebrates its third birthday with the group exhibition “Historienbild” within a six-part exhibition series about the various genres of (not just) painting. All the 30 works by Chris Dreier, Andreas Seltzer, Henning Kappenberg, Barbara Duisberg and Thilo Droste differently address history and remembering the past, but not the least war.

“Historical Picture” at Kunstraum t27 (Berlin)

From 11 December 2010, Berlin-based gallery Kunstraum t27 is presenting the group exhibition “Historienbild” (historical painting) within the six-part exhibition series about the various genres of (not just) painting. “Historienbild” has the subject of dealing with history, and interestingly all the works directly or indirectly address war.

Premiere: “Les Troyens” at Deutsche Oper Berlin

On 5 December 2010, Deutsche Oper Berlin (German Opera, Berlin, one of the three operas in Berlin) premiers Hector Berlioz’s opera Les Troyens (The Trojans). It was as recently as 1969 that this double opera (created 1856-1858) was shown in its full length of some five hours for the first time. The impressive work addresses the horrors of war: Troy perishes, the survivors fight in Carthage against an attacker, and this continued to be a never-ending story even after Aeneas and Carthage’s queen Dido have fallen in love with each other: decisions and fate tear them apart again; at the end, death remains.

Bild 167 wolfgang joop als troyaner
deutsche oper berlin 2010

Alain Josseau: War Vision Machines (Le Garric, France)

Beginning on 25 November 2010, French artist Alain Josseau presents some of his fascinating installations in the exhibition “War Vision Machines” in Le Garric, France. His works always address our and the media’s perception of major events such as wars.

Alain Josseau: War Machine #2 Continue reading “Alain Josseau: War Vision Machines (Le Garric, France)”

Opening: Chandogin – War Photography from Karelia and Leningrad 1939-1944

From 5 November 2010 onwards, the German-Russian Museum in Berlin-Karlshorst¹ is presenting the photo exhibition “Chandogin – War Photography from Karelia and Leningrad 1939-1944”. Since years, this museum is curating excellent exhibitions of Soviet photographers who often are hardly known in the West. This exhibition shall not the least be interesting, as its first focus is on the Soviet-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940, about which relatively few photos are available.

OLt Nikolaj Iwanowitsch Chandogin im Fronteinsatz, o.O., 1943/45 (© Deutsch-Russisches Museum Berlin-Karlshorst e.V.)

On 8/9 May 1945 at the then Army Combat Engineers Barracks, the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht was signed again and thus ratified, therefore ending the Second World War in Europe. ↩

Jürgen Graetz: Erinnerungen (Memories)

As already announced here, on 29 October 2010, the exhibition “Erinnerungen” (memories) with photographs of Jürgen Graetz was successfully opened in the premises of the Berlin-based political consultancy republik movida GmbH. The welcome address was given by Lars Lindemann MdB (FDP) in the presence of the artist.

Lars Lindemann MdB, curator Martin Bayer, photographer Jürgen Graetz