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?
Supported by the “Bundesbeauftragter für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik“3 (BStU), the artist shows images from the archives of East Germany’s Staatssicherheit. They show secret symbols with whom the surveillants communicated with each other, people or letterboxes under surveillance, examined flats or pieces of evidence, documents or the preparation for action such as putting up disguises or false beards. In other photos, the agents took picture of the opposing side’s agents taking pictures of them, thus introducing another, absurd level to these images.
17 January until 3 March 2011
Opening: 16 January 2011, 1500h
(Please register at kontakt@rendezvousmitkunst.de)
Meinekestr. 7
10719 Berlin-Charlottenburg
Germany
Mo-Sa 1200-0100h, Su 1800-0100h
- Stasi is the short form of “(Ministerium für) Staatssicherheit” ((Ministry for) State Security), the East-German state security service. ↩
- Berlin University of the Arts ↩
- Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives ↩