CAPRI
an installation by Ina Bierstedt and Bettina
Carl and Alena Meier
Aug. 03 - Aug. 18, 2001
open thur/fr/sat 4-8 pm
The atmosphere of present day Berlin is to a high degree the result of
quite disparate velocities. Many houses still sport the war's bullet holes
on their outsides - and flats without private bathrooms within. Some blocks
away, at Potsdamer Platz a huge shopping mall boasts to be the city's
new center; yet actually this is a free entry private enclosure which
looks and feels like a blown up Lego village, a place where one is surprised
to see real water sloshing in the fountain pools (how do they do that?)
and people around licking edible icecreams.
The whole of Berlin is a construction site, some streets change completely
within weeks, while life is rather slowing down in many other aspects.
Brandnew office buildings stay empty for years, a high percentage of the
population do not have regular work so they are not in a hurry at all.
This city is overcharged as a historical symbol but its general condition
is one of voids and relicts, of an all over provisional place.
(The island of) Capri has been the target of northern European bourgeouis
nostalgia for two hundred years now. Moreover, the island's name may stand
as a synonym of West German postwar escapism, an escapism that was part
of the national longing to be reborn as decent, friendly and successful
people who were only remotely related to those guys responsible for massmurder
and devastation a few years before. For obvious reasons this was easier
to pursue in Italy or Spain than, say, in France or in Greece.
On a more trivial level, the word CAPRI evokes kitch and stereotypes cramped
in a small place, pleasant dreams and massive projections. It alludes
to a mentality that withdraws from a depressing reality by constructing
a very nice little place of one's own. After the GDR had been absorbed
by West Germany, many people tried to turn from unemployed to entrepreneurs
and started their little businesses; only a few succeeded.
One has to admit that to a certain degree the wish to live and survive
as an artist derives from a similar attitude, an attitude that feeds of
illusions.
|