“Ein Platz”
10th October to 1st November at Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1, Berlin
‘untitled’ (from 5 second cityscapes) 2007 – Gregor Stephan
“Ein Platz” Enda O’Donoghue, Gregor Stephan, Sven Kalden, Sean Lynch, Michele Horrigan, Sladjan Nedeljkovic, Karin Krautschick, Isidro Ramirez, Paul Halliday, Raphael Grisey, Michael Tan Nine artists together around one plaza. An exhibition at Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1. Berliners and visitors to the city passing the Palast der Republik today see only the concrete towers that once supported the building. There is little here now to remind them of the Palast itself. Every day, the viewer’s knowledge is adapted to the latest changes at the site, slowly erasing the pictures of the intact original from memory. A similar process took place in the early 1990s at what is now Platz der Vereinten Nationen. Besides the monumental statue of Lenin that once stood here recalling the Palast’s monumental concrete pillars, its slow and laborious removal was also characteristic of the way Berlin deals with its (architectural) past. The end of the story is well-known: the monument was dismantled, the parts including the head were buried in Köpenick, and the Leninplatz was renamed. In spite of, or perhaps precisely because of this neutralisation, the place retains a sense of the unusual. This is now demonstrated by “Ein Platz”, an exhibition organised at 1, Platz der Vereinten Nationen by Enda O’Donoghue and Gregor Stephan with the kind support of Galerie Hunchentoot and WBM. The show includes material by nine German and international artists, bringing together video, photography and object-based works that take the Platz der Vereinten Nationen as their point of departure. All of these works play with the ordinariness and supposed neutrality of the plaza, and with the peculiarities, stories and memories that lie beneath the surface.
‘Minute of Angle’ (video still) – Enda O’Donoghue
We look forward to seeing you at the exhibition. Address: Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1, 10249, Berlin Opening: 10.10.2008 at 19:00 Exhibition runs: 10.10. to 01.11.2008 Wed to Fri – 16:00 to 19:00 Sat 11:00 to 18:00 and by appointment www.galerie-hunchentoot.de