Berlin Berlin Before the Mauer falls. The first video is a wonderful experimental art-film (25minutes long!)made in the 1980s before anyone could have imagined the end of the DDR. It is by the filmaker U.Happe-the beginning is rather "abstract" and maybe difficult for some viewers/readers but the second part of his short 25minute art-film has very reconizable views of Berlin Kreuzberg that are a delight to see. It is from the perspective of Westberlin and specifically in my neighborhood Kreuzberg-36 a zone that had been slated for demolition by the west so as to build a highway along parts of the berlin wall. This was an "armpit" of the west and looked like a depressed underclass ghetto.
This next short (much shorter!) video is like a video-postcard from 1973. It was most probably shot in Super8 and then transfered. It indicates many EastBerlin tourist sights- such as the Soviet memorial deep in the Treptow park. It also has very curious DDR/Soviet soldiers in parade- the spectacle of militarism is very interesting as part of the "image" of the DDR- like parading birds of paradise making a dance to seduce- these soldiers parade on unter der Linden in the staquato march in the manner on saw in the former Soviet Union and still today in North Korea. It is kitsch but worthy of note. enjoy.
This next 2 videos below entitled "Random scenes in Berlin Spring 1989" and "Berlin1989" reveal fragments beyond the above postcard. The second video is much more beautiful and hints at the new consumerism of the new unified Germany. The Fall of the wall would not happen until October-November of the same year.
And indeed commercialism/corporatism would soon emerge and exploit the historical situation as one sees how in this video
My first Berlin visit was in 1995 for the impressive art-event by Christo&JeaneClaude for the wrapping of the Reichstag. It garnered much admiration as well as ridicule. It was the first time in my life that i had experienced an artwork that moved a culture of people at the same moment. It created debate and derision during its short life. The conservative Berlin government who had reluctantly approved the project requested that the wrapping remain longer after they had realized the financially beneficial gains that this spectacle had brought- that request was denied by the artit(s) after they had worked for decades to realize this self-sponsored project.
During this time in the summer of 1995 I also participated in an art installation which I created in Mitte at a club knows as "Boudoir" run by a lesbian couple and Curated by the artist Rinaldo
In 1997 another public art-project ("Arbeit Macht Frei" Projection on 1997 Brandenburg Gate. Memorial Day for Auschwitz, January 27, 1997) was staged next to the Reichstag at the Brandengurg Tor. It is presented to the public as a memorial to the Holocaust by the sculptor/conceptualist H.Hoheisel. It is an ephemral night time projection of the Gates of Auschwitz "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Makes you Free") onto the iconic Gate of Berlin. Brilliant! Imensly more succesful than the newly constructed memorial of concrete monoliths.
And here below is Berlin in the year 2000 (April16,2000- by the same filmaker as the first-this tour of Berlin is almost an hour long! The filmaker has abandoned his arduous artistic technique and presents a very direct documentation worth viewing) while I was acclamating to Paris living. It begins in Kreuzberg and takes us along the U1 elevated train till The Neuegalerie and turns towards the Potsdamerplatz where the new skyscrapers have just been erected (Sony center and so on where the Berlinale is shown) we can see the RedBox the marvelous (temporary) exhibition space that illustrates all the post wall reconstructions. a turn is made towards the Brandenburg Gate where we can see the renovated Riechstag building (Norman Foster's glass dome marks it welll as a new Berlin landmark) The city is littered with Booms and Cranes and overhead steam pipes to facilittate all the construction this cioty would see after its high state of low repair. The new Chancellry can be seen and many many early and mid constructions in the Botschaftsviertel(the embassy quarter) None of this made much sense to me before relocating here- these 2 videos are absolutely historical. A visitor today would be very amazed at how much has changed. The transformations of Mitte and prenzlauerberg remain the most shocking. The Fehrnsehenturm is a good marker of being in the former DDR/GDR. Oranienburger strasse is now a haven of intense tourism, shops and manga-like prostitution.
One can understand in an abstract manner the reconstruction of the unified-formerly divided- city through the recent 3D animation here below
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