The Celebration of Berlin’s 750th Anniversary in 1987

Abstract

The Celebration of Berlin’s 750th Anniversary in 1987 chapter features some of the projects from Sculpture Boulevard (Skulpturenboulevard), the first large-scale public sculpture project in West Berlin, developed to celebrate this anniversary. The Culture Department sponsored the Sculpture Boulevard program and commissioned eight eminent artists. Each artist had the freedom to choose a location for his or her work inside the area between Rathenauplatz and Wittenbergplatz, which were at that time part of West Berlin. One of the commissioned artists, prominent German artist Wolf Vostell, developed his Berlin work Two Concrete Cadillacs in the Form of the Nude Maja and placed it on a traffic roundabout in Rathenauplatz at the western end of Kurfürstendamm Boulevard. Other examples are presented in this unit. Olaf Metzel’s 13.4.1981 composition appears as a chaotic bunch of diverse elements, created to symbolize the chaos left after a riot that happened on April 13, 1981, at Kurfürstendamm. On that night, a spontaneous riot broke out after the media incorrectly announced that a Red Army Faction member, Sigurd Debus, had died in prison as a result of a hunger strike. This misinformation was shared with the public shortly before the parliamentary elections, with the intention of influencing public opinion. Through this work, the artist made a statement of how strong the media’s power can be and what could happen as the result of manipulation. Metzel’s work is symbolically composed of police barriers, but it also has supermarket shopping cart replicas incorporated into it. Another work in this section is Arc 124.5° by famous French conceptual artist Bernar Venet. It was a gift from the French government for the occasion of Berlin’s 750th anniversary in 1987. The vertical body of the sculpture, which strikes out into the air, is located in front of the Urania, near Wittenbergplatz. This chapter includes an interview with Bernar Venet.