Deutsches Historisches Museum - Verf�hrung Freiheit. Kunst in Europa seit 1945 - Blog

The New York Times wrote in 1987 in an article titled ‘Berlin by Night’ that ‘John le Carré sends one of his characters in a melancholy mood to Berlin: “Scared of himself he hastened to a fashionable Greek nightclub he knew of, run by a woman of cosmopolitan wisdom”.’ This woman is Fofi and this is her story (and how we met her):  

Dark were the sides of the idea of liberty shown by the first exhibition ‚Vertigo of Freedom‘ at the CHB last year. This year it is the second basic democratic principle that moves exhibition and artists: égalité, equality.

The exhibition starts already outside on the façade of the CHB. There we read the ‘Partial Declaration of Human Wrongs’:  

Some call it winter; we call it museum weather. Even if it isn’t that cold, the monotone grey outside doesn’t exactly make you think of long walks. Nonetheless, in an effort to convince more visitors of the true value of ‘museum weather’ and our exhibition, we invited two organisations, Livekritik and Kulturloge Berlin, in for a visit. 

"I wanted to create a painting that you could not enter. You need to stay on the surface."

Tjebbe Beekman has his studio in Berlin Hohenschönhausen. Anyone who immediately thinks of the Stasi (State Security Service) Prison Memorial there is right on. His studio is right next door. The industrial building, where many artists work, exudes a menacing charm. The previously-visited Memorial adds to this impression. The large-format photograph Stasi City by Jane and Louise Wilson from our exhibition also plays it part.