The Jewish Museum Berlin Celebrates its 10th Anniversary With a Special Exhibition

Written by Arthur Daley Friday, 16 September 2011 01:06

Berlin.- The Jewish Museum Berlin is pleased to present “How German is it? 30 Artists’ Notion of Home”, a special exhibition marking the 10th Anniversary of the museum. The exhibition opens on September 16th and remains on view through January 29th 2012. The Jewish Museum Berlin is seizing the opportunity of its 10th anniversary to take a snapshot in time of the relationship that people living there have to Germany: A Germany that – through the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reunification of the two German states, and the recognition that almost 20 % of its citizens have a so-called migration background – has visibly altered. The distance in time since the Holocaust and the immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union have also brought about a radical shift in the self-image of Jews in Germany during the last 20 years.

The curators’ aim was to explore how “ethnic” and naturalized citizens, newcomers from abroad, Jews, Muslims, Christians, and the religiously indifferent live in Germany today, how they relate to this state and this society, and how they see themselves as Germans – the age-old themes of “foreignness” and “otherness,” of exclusion and belonging, are discussed anew under the premise of current circumstances. Such questions are amongst the Jewish Museum’s core themes. Through the exhibition, the Jewish Museum Berlin explores phenomena that lie somewhere between national consciousness, a sense of home, belonging, and exclusion. The museum has chosen a subjective approach – the works of contemporary artists – for this exploration. Is there such a thing as a collective national identity? How do they see themselves, the citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany and the people from other countries who live in Berlin, Munich, or Frankfurt – whether they grew up in West or East Germany, whatever religion they practice, whether their origins are Russian, Turkish, or something else? The coordinates of a familiar self-image started to shift when the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic collapsed, long before Germany reluctantly began to define itself as a country of immigration. The Jewish Museum Berlin is seizing the opportunity of its 10th anniversary to explore how it feels to be German: The special exhibition “How German is it?” shows works by 30 artists who take perceptions in and of Germany as their artistic themes.


Eight works were commissioned exclusively for the exhibition and created by the following artists: Arnold Dreyblatt, Via Lewandowsky and Durs Grünbein, Anny and Sibel Öztürk, Julian Rosefeldt, Misha Shenbrot, Paul Brody, Azra Akšamija, and Lilli Engel and Raffael Rheinsberg. Artists who live or have lived in Germany and for whom today’s Germany is a key theme in their work were selected for the exhibition. Central aspects of their perception are the focus – the works reflect on family and collective memory, national myths, experiences of migration, and lastly language and religion. The installations, video and film works, photographic series, paintings, and prints were all created in the last 10 years. Experiences of migration and feeling foreign are at the heart of the photo series “Ich werde deutsch” (I become German) by the Iranian-born artist Maziar Moradi. These feature key moments in the biographies of people who have immigrated to Germany or who are rooted in another culture. The sisters Anny and Sibel Öztürk with roots in Turkey and Frankfurt have designed a 16-meter wide wall installation. The Californian performance artist Paul Brody presents sound biographies in his sound installation “Five Easy Pieces,” which condenses discussions on living in Germany in several compositions. The exhibit by the Bosnian-born artist Azra Akšamija is called “Dirndlmoschee” – a modern dirndl dress that can be transformed into a prayer room for 3 people, playing on the link between Islamic tradition and the Western world.

Several works are concerned with family and collective memory. The New York musician and artist Arnold Dreyblatt has created in his first autobiographical piece “My Baggage” an installation with 150 documents from his family history from Eastern Europe, the USA, and Berlin. The Israeli artist Maya Zack has reconstructed German “Living Rooms” after the narrative of a Jewish inhabitant who fled in the 1930s and shows them as large 3D pictures. National myths are explored in several of the works of art. Two pieces pick up on an emotional reference point in Germany – the German forest. Lilli Engel and Raffael Rheinsberg have designed a “Naturkunstzelle” (Natural Art Cell), a large, yew-hedge cube confronting visitors with the German allotment idyll. Julian Rosefeldt addresses German forest myths in a film installation: The plot of “Meine Heimat ist ein düsteres wolkenverhangenes Land” (My Home is a Dark and Cloud-Hung Land) deliberately misleads viewers. In its central scene, a grotesque forest performance unfolds with singing Germanic people, demonstrating conservationists, and a wind ensemble. A documentary exhibition chapter looks back at the last 10 years through popular-culture objects, documents, and films. How has the brand “Germany” changed? From organic supermarkets in model railway scenes through rain ponchos in national colors to potato parties and park guards – the archive room does its own research and explores various aspects of “becoming German.”


The Jewish Museum Berlin (Jüdisches Museum Berlin), in Berlin, Germany, covers two millennia of German Jewish history. It consists of two buildings. One is the old Kollegienhaus, a former courthouse, built in the 18th century. The other, a new addition specifically built for the museum, designed by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind. This was one of the first buildings in Berlin designed after German reunification. The museum opened to the public in 2001. The original Jewish Museum in Berlin was founded on Oranienburger Straße in 1933. The Nazi regime closed it in 1938, and it wasn’t until 1975 that an "Association for a Jewish Museum" formed to resurrect the old museum. After an exhibition on Jewish history opened there in 1978, the Berlin Museum, which chronicled the city’s history, established a Jewish Department. Soon thereafter, discussions for constructing a new museum dedicated to Jewish history in Berlin began. In 1988, the Berlin government announced an anonymous competition for the new museum’s design. A year later, Daniel Libeskind's design was chosen for the commission for what was then planned as a “Jewish Department” for the Berlin Museum. While other entrants proposed cool, neutral spaces, Libeskind offered a radical, zigzag design, which earned the nickname 'Blitz'. On July 3, 1991, the Senate of Berlin voted to scrap the Jewish Museum. Financial pressures from unforeseen unification expenses and a serious bid for Berlin to host a future Olympics prompted the Senate's decision to otherwise reallocate the approximately $50 million. The Libeskinds, however, alerted the international press. Influential political and cultural figures, including Benjamin Netanyahu, Teddy Kollek, Jacques Lang, and Marvin Hier, expressed their support for the museum. Due to these pressures, in October 1991, the Parliament of Berlin overruled the Senate and work on the Jewish Museum continued. Construction on the new extension to the Berlin Museum began in November 1992. The empty building shell was completed in 1999 and attracted over 350,000 people before it was filled and opened officially on September 9, 2001. The museum adjoins the old Berlin Museum and sits on land that was West Berlin before the Berlin Wall fell. The Museum itself, consisting of about 161,000 square feet (15,000 square meters), is a twisted zig-zag and is accessible only via an underground passage from the Berlin Museum's baroque wing. Its shape is reminiscent of a warped Star of David. A "Void," an empty space about 66 feet (20 m) tall, slices linearly through the entire building. Menashe Kadishman's Shalechet (Fallen leaves) installation fills the void with 10,000 coarse iron faces. An irregular matrix of windows cuts in all orientations across the building's facade. A thin layer of zinc coats the building's exterior, which will oxidize and turn bluish as it weathers. A second underground tunnel connects the Museum proper to the E.T.A. Hoffmann Garden, or The Garden of Exile, whose foundation is tilted. The final underground tunnel leads from the Museum to the Holocaust Tower, a 79 foot (24 m) tall empty silo. The bare concrete Tower is neither heated nor cooled, and its only light comes from a small slit in its roof. Similar to Libeskind’s first building, the Felix Nussbaum Haus, the museum consists of three spaces. All three of the underground tunnels, or "axes," intersect and may represent the connection between the three realities of Jewish life in Germany, as symbolized by each of the three spaces: Continuity with German history, Emigration from Germany, and the Holocaust. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.jmberlin.de

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