Germany celebrates 25 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall, with fascinating art

Many events are reminiscent of the first act on the way to reunification of the Germans , in many places along the entire former border, a focus of the festivities is in Berlin.

This focus is on a whole series of reasons in this city:

Berlin was German capital for 244 years , albeit the capital of different many Germans. From 1701 Berlin was Prussian capital, from 1871 capital of the German Reich, from 1918 capital of the Weimar Republic, from 1933 capital of the third Reich. And from May 8, 1945, suddenly no capital, because of a world war that also initiated Germany.

The division that began with Germany under Allied administration and was actually already carried out on May 26, 1952. From that day, West Berliners were no longer allowed to enter the area of ​​the German Democratic Republic freely due to a regulation of the GDR government. But still freely move in all parts of Berlin until on August 13, 1961 the foreclosure of the eastern part began, quickly became the "Berlin Wall" and thus real.

This separation across Berlin and across Germany should have 28 years and 88 days until November 9, 1989 the citizens of the eastern part of the city in the most original sense of the word "went to the barricades" ... and Germany turned into a country again, the city of Berlin got an old/new and rather dilapidated half of the city from one day.

Dilk, but exciting - Berlin became the capital of Germany's completely newly arranged, and it did not take very long for an uninterrupted series of active, too great commitment and investment prepare creative people to Berlin, including many, many artists.

Berlin can offer artists in five -digit numbers, since the fall of the wall, the capital has developed into a center of the art world of our century, as Paris in the 19th century and New York in the second half of the 20th century, in Berlin and more and more art has been created, also for the wall and its opening.

The anniversary will add even more, some artwork is being processed and only presented to or after the anniversary, some work of art is created around the anniversary of the opening of the wall under the observation or participation of the citizens.

The wall in heaven

Whether it has to do with 28 years and 88 days that the author of the most sensational art campaign for the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is currently in doubt, Christopher Bauder simply calculated: a good 12 kilometers measured the human-considering mega structure that the Berliners separated almost three decades every one and a half meters.

Or a balloon stele, the balloons rest when the former wall line becomes the "light limit" from 7th to 9th November 2014 :

8,000 white balloons with a mighty diameter of 60 centimeters, at 8,000 3.40 meters high white light steles, illuminated by 8,000 LEDs installed in the steles, operated by 60,000 batteries in the feet of the balloon stele - a light installation of superlatives , which promises extraordinary beauty.

On the website of Christopher Bauder www.christopherbauder.com you can watch a wonderful preliminary visualization and some zoomable images of the light limit on different sections of the route.

This preview was implemented by Christopher Bauder's brother Marc, the second creative in the family and the second man in the "Light Border" project; A well -known filmmaker who has already had several award -winning documentaries and feature films.

Marc Bauder takes us on site, along the light border, on an emotional journey from the wall building to the fall of the Berlin Wall: It has put together tons of documentary material films with historical events and points of view around the wall, which are shown at six striking places of the light limit on huge video screens.

The lamp steles consisting of 40 individual parts were designed by Christopher Bauders Lichtdesign company Whitevoid ( www.whitevoid.com ). The balloons are made of natural rubber, a biodegradable material, as well as the closure clips of the balloons-for the design and production, a research project at the University of Hanover was launched.

If you have fulfilled your task, the balloons would be decomposed somewhere on Berliner Boden about as quickly as an oak leaf - if the Berliners give the balloons a chance to decompose, with a view to the further determination of the balloons initiated on the evening of November 9:

Each balloon has a Berlin citizen as a balloon sponsor who fills his balloon with helium and attaches a small card with experiences, thoughts and wishes for the wall and the fall of the wall.

On November 9th at 7.30 p.m. the balloon will be sent to the Berlin sky , the whole, 12.6 km long light wall rises in the air, shows a moment the wall monstrosity and dissolves, in the spirit of Udo Lindenberg's east-west love song "It continues behind the horizon" ... Until the balloon truds somewhere and is certainly collected by someone, the balloon and card Keep memory and maybe find the author of the attached message at some point ...

The wall in front of the eye

The artists Justin Allen and Adel Motamedi developed a temporary installation that makes the wall appear when the viewer moves far enough:

In the park at the Nordbahnhof you have attached to 562 birch Mirrors along the way that used to be a wall. Close side by side, at a height of three meters, a harmless assembly of notes on trees.

Which has it all, which only becomes visible to the viewer when he has moved far enough and has a clear view:

Then the apparently indiscriminate arrangement dissolves and at the same time, into a completely straight horizontal line - to the sketch of a wall crown in the amount of the wall, which was exactly below this line 25 years ago.

The surprising installation "3 meter constellation" in the Nordbahnhof Park can be visited since the beginning of October 2014, and it can be visited under 3meter Konstellation.tumblr.com (pre-) with a site plan and the opportunity to contact the artists.

The wall under your feet

Hamish Fulton, the "Walking Artist" , presented his contribution to the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall as part of the "Art Week Berlin" on September 21, 2014 :

The performance "Walking East - Walking West" invited Berliners to experience the road on the Brandenburg Gate on June 17 with very, very slow steps. Contrary to “creeping”, 800 Berliners moved 100 meters each, in 60 minutes, from east to west and from west to east.

100 meters in an hour - a huge deceleration, time for a lot of thoughts about wall construction and wall and life in Berlin and art and life at all ... in the spirit of the "ongoing artist" Hamish Fulton, who has made it into art since 1967, to explore our planet with his own steps alone and with invited "fellow hikers" (no fellow runners).

Fulton documents these hikes, cinematic and sometimes also photographically, maybe a few pictures of the Berlin Jubilee Schleicher appear in the exhibition "Landscape in My Min. Landscape Photography Today. From Hamish Fulton to Andreas Gursky", which will be shown in Bank Austria Kunstforum in Vienna from February 11 to April 26, 2015 (Info: www.kunstforumwien.at ).

The artistic hike took place as part of a project of the Academy of the Arts entitled "Dizziness of Reality / Vertigo of Reality" , more about the art project with exhibition and symposia that continues until December 14, 2014 .

A picture route with some impressions of the contemplative stroller is available at www.art-in-berlin.de/incblassen.php?id=3352 Kunstplaza soon .

The wall in the media

RBB (Radio Berlin Brandenburg) calls documentaries and background information.

The RBB sends from world -famous locations such as Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, Glienicker Brücke and from places with mysterious names such as duck beak, enclave and angel pool, he talks to known and unknown people about their day of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he revives this historical day all over.

The TV broadcaster Arte , in German and French first broadcast on Sunday, November 9, 2014, at 10.10 p.m.

A film by the well-known documentary filmmaker Anders Østergaard and the young Fiimemacher Erzsébet Rácz from 2013 and a political thriller who wants to make us clear that brave actions of individuals can very well change the course of history.

The wall and the "events"

There will be a lot of events around November 9th:

At the big "Bürgerfest" at the Brandenburg Gate with the motto "Courage of freedom" there will be extensive program on November 9, 2014 and rich star contingent:

It starts from 12 noon with the public rehearsal of the Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. From 2:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. there is a family program with appearances by Beat'n Blow, Clueso, Mine and Otto Normal, a break dance performance and artist talks on the subject of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

at 6 p.m. with joint commemoration of the wall victims, followed by the stage program staged by the Berlin artist company "Phase 7" with performances by the Fantastic Vier, by Peter Gabriel and Paul Kalkbrenner, the band Silly and Udo Lindenberg, and discussions with eyewitness, Wolf Biermann, Freya Klier, Ulrike Poppe, for example.

Then the Staatskapelle Berlin under Daniel Barenboim plays the 4th set of the 9th Symphony of Beethoven, the ODE to the joy, and the "light limit" increases with the sky ...

You can find an overview of the events at www.berlin.de/mauerfall2014 (click on the menu item "Events" in the menu bar, do not pay attention to the fold -out riders, which are only for providers).

Note: In the event calendar on the page, you have to select a "district" for the closer local narrowing of an event, whereby the selection list contains districts ("District Mitte", "Lichtenberg"), parts of districts ("Kreuzberg", "Zehlendorf") and districts ("Rummelburg", "Prenzlauer Berg"), in colorful logic, even for a Berliner.

For the navigation system of a tourist or a simple look at a map, it will be quite difficult in case of doubt, so there is a list in which non-Berliners can read in which districts are the places of the selection list:

• District Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg-of course, that is the official district name
• District Mitte - SO
• Charlottenburg is located in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district
• Friedrichshain is located in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district (Sun, unfoundable double)
• Hellersdorf is located in the Marzahn-Hellersdorf district
• Hohenschönhausen is located in the Lichtenberg district
• Kreuzberg is located in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district (Sun ...)
• Lichtenberg is a district itself
• Middle is even a district (so ...)
• Pankow is a district itself
• Prenzlauer Berg is located in the Pankow district
• Rummelsburg is located in the Lichtenberg district, western south border Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
• Steglitz is located in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district
• Tempelhof is located in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district
• Tiergarten is located in the Mitte district
• Treptow is located in the Treptow-Köpenick district
• Wedding is located in the Mitte district
• Wilmersdorf is located in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district
• Zehlendorf is located in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district

The wall in art

The artists have not only discovered the wall now, here are some of the most beautiful wall works of art to watch :

"Reunification" , a sculpture by Hildegard Leest, location near the former border crossing in Chausseestrasse in the Mitte district.

"The Day The Wall Came Down" by Veryl Goodnight, a gift from the US people to Berlin, CLAYALLEE near Allen-Museum in the Berlin-Zehlendorf district.

Wall strips "Place of November 9, 1989" , location Bornholmer Strasse near a former border crossing, which connected the districts of Pankow and Mitte.

A piece of hopeful Berlin wall from the "East-Side-Gallery" , location open-air gallery: Berlin-Friedrichshain, Mühlenstraße, between Berliner Ostbahnhof and Oberbaumbrücke along the Spree.

The wall of the "East-Side-Gallery" was painted in spring 1990 by 118 artists from 21 countries around the world, a total of 1.316 kilometers were designed with over 100 paintings, in which the artists have illustrated the political change since 1989 in a very different way.

The East Side Gallery is no longer preserved, the originals from 1990 were replaced by replicas in 2009, for some time the most violent discussions.

There will be many events around November 9th; And there will be many other festivals and celebrations around the anniversary of the opening of the wall, in Wismar and in Lübeck, in Wittenberge and in Wolfsburg, in Salzgitter and in Nordhausen, in Eisenach and in Fulda, in Suhl and in Coburg, in Hof and in Plauen, but still in many smaller places and probably also closer to a number of personal memory points on the former border strip.

If you have taken art on the day of the jewelry, i.e. created unique photos or other memory documents from these joy celebrations, Kunstplaza would be happy to be able to present these unique pieces in the online gallery.