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scena<br />
4.13.81, 1987, Kurfürstendamm Berlin, 1,150 × 900 × 700 cm, photo: Hans Peter Stiebing<br />
messages from the fans, after the slogan: “To the gas chamber!“<br />
Following these reactions, I had to draw the conclusion that the ordinary<br />
Berliner is 60 years old and far-gone. The work was internationally<br />
appreciated; it is only here that it was not understood.<br />
¬ Did it annoy you that Matschinsky-Denninghoff’s and Vostell’s<br />
sculptures were bought and yours not?<br />
√ No, because from the start I wanted to make a mobile sculpture.<br />
The work was to be exhibited on the long-term in the Goethe University<br />
campus from Frankfurt. There was already a sponsor, Kasper<br />
König had got involved in this, and the rector was pleased. It would<br />
have fit in well, to begin with the ambient – the Frankfurt School,<br />
Horkheimer and Adorno. But when the student strike began, some<br />
got cold feet, and the entire story died.<br />
¬ The work was understood as a declaration of sympathy towards<br />
the autonomous and a critique of the police state.<br />
√ I see it rather as an autonomous sculpture, which intervenes.<br />
The question was not to temporarily deposit a broach in the public<br />
space. It has been used as meeting point during the census boycott<br />
and for demonstrations, and as a tribune during the France Tour.<br />
It was a downright animated corner. People were standing on the concrete<br />
blocks, a Gypsy band was clattering, the tourists were hanging<br />
around with their hot dogs and hamburgers. I hate sterile areas. Back<br />
in those times, Kurfürstendamm was still a promenade, now it is over.<br />
¬ Did the autonomous identify with the “monument of the scandal“?<br />
√ You should ask them.<br />
¬ No reaction at all?<br />
√ Oh, yes, sure. Most of them thought it was cool. I’ve tried<br />
to distribute the production money to several smaller factories in<br />
Kreuzberg, and thus to rub along winter. They thought it was<br />
a super <strong>idea</strong>.<br />
¬ During the census boycott, the cops had to protect the monument<br />
from the demonstrators, because people were climbing up<br />
on it and were throwing flyers. Was it a topsy-turvy world?<br />
√ Monument is a wrong representation, a small erroneous linguistic<br />
interpretation. It is precisely not about something monumental<br />
and supporting the state. I don’t want to go into semiotics. I was<br />
then interested in something completely different, Mondrian’s New<br />
York Boogie Woogie. Had the work been illuminated during night<br />
time, it would have individualized itself pretty rapidly. I also wanted<br />
to raise the issue of the possibility of public space sculpture, in the<br />
sense of secondary architecture. Everybody knows the pedestrian<br />
areas, horribly equipped, with flower beds and bank quarters.<br />
The mobile restricted-access metallic fences were set as another<br />
form of secondary architecture.<br />
¬ How do you explain the fact that so many works from the public<br />
space have declined to the flower beds-level?<br />
√ You should ask those who produce such things. If you want to<br />
call in question, as excessively and risky as possible, the possibility<br />
of public space sculpture, you cannot nail down a foundation weighing<br />
I don’t know how many tons. The younger people were pleased.<br />
I got negative messages but also many positive ones. Better some<br />
reaction than absolutely none. I enjoyed it very much; it was lots<br />
of work to do. Afterwards, plenty of people have asked themselves<br />
why the most impressive work had to disappear, while the others<br />
remained, and some have even been bought.<br />
¬ You have become notorious for the action Türkenwohnung<br />
Abstand 12.000.–DM VB [Turkish house advance 12,000–DM VB]<br />
(1982), a savage orgy of a house destruction in Wedding. Wasn’t the<br />
owner upset with the consequences, among which a monumental<br />
swastika cut in the wall?<br />
√ No, here I have to make a little correction. This work originally<br />
had other topic. I wanted to cast a movie, to activate spaces outside<br />
the classical exhibition context. This <strong>idea</strong> reappears once in five years.<br />
The aversion towards strangers refers now rather to refugees, then it<br />
was the Turks’ case, and swastikas can be seen in any toilet. My point<br />
was to bring those things together and to present them in a movie.<br />
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