While
strolling through a wintry and terribly icy cold Berlin, I saw a big guy trying
to push his head through the wall of a shiny white property. You might have
heard about stuff like this before, these are indeed the things that can happen to
you in this town, right?
We will get to the bottom of this. The
Collegium Hungaricum between Maxim Gorki Theatre and Humboldt Uni encourages a dialogue between the German and
the Hungarian culture. Hungary opened it in 1973, on territory of the GDR, for
the pure enjoyment of their political buddies. Both communist countries,
together with Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia were part of the
Eastern Bloc and aligned to the Soviet Union (some might remember this last
place as USSR). Until the wall came down, the institute and its diverse
cultural events were happily frequented, interestingly enough, by intellectuals
opposing the GDR.
The
Hungarian artist Ervin Hervé-Lóránth erected this giant who looks into the
Collegium Hungaricum to connect the outside with the inside. There is a camera
in his art work to record and reflect on everything that happens in its close
proximity. This is all very interesting indeed.
I
respect the artist's vision but most of the time I simply interpret each piece
of artwork as I wish. When I saw the giant at this building in the eastern part
of town I saw it as a reminder of the fact that it pays off to sometimes try to
push your head through a wall to understand everything that there is behind it,
and to get into conversation with the ones on the other side. Be brave, and the
wildest things can happen, cold wars can come to an end, whole countries might
reunite ...
What
if Mikhail Gorbachev would have been too cowardly to push his head through the wall and to
introduce the perestroika and freedom (glasnost)? Most certainly, I wouldn’t be
here to marvel at this giant sculpture. I understand that if the Soviet Union
wouldn’t have had massive money problems Mr Gorbachev would probably not have
pushed his head through the wall. But who really knows what would have been and what not. This is a very different story anyway.
Do
you like to look at art no matter what? Do you think it is legitimate to see something other than what the artist had imagined?
Can’t
wait to hear from you.
From
Berlin with love