Albertinum: “As far as I know – effective immediately…, without delay”

Focus Albertinum: “As far as I know – effective immediately…, without delay”

The 30th Anniversary of the Opening of the Wall during the Peaceful Revolution, featuring works by Via Lewandowsky, Henrike Naumann and Mario Pfeifer.

Exhibition Site Albertinum

DATES 10/09/2019—06/09/2020

For the first time, Via Lewandowsky's (b. 1963) swaying picture with its two sides, “Frozen Limbs Break Easily” and "Greeting," is being exhibited in Dresden. This work dates back to 1988/89: while “Frozen Limbs Break Easily” was created in 1988 in East Berlin, the other side, entitled “Greeting,” was painted in 1989 in West Berlin, where the artist was staying at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, having been invited there in connection with an exhibition at the Haus am Waldsee. Historically, then, it is a German-German work of art, which is also associated with Dresden, where the artist trained, by virtue of the fact that the weights holding the base of the swing in place are stones from the ruins of the Frauenkirche.

**Via Lewandowsky, Bildschaukel, Seite 1: Gefrorene Glieder brechen leicht, 1988/ Bildschaukel, Seite 2: Gruß, 1989** Vier Bildtafeln, doppelseitig bemalt, Acryl/Leinwand und Kappa, Metallrahmen, Schaukelfuß aus Metall, Sandstein, ca. 450 x 140 x 100 cm, Förderankauf des SMWK, 1995, Kunstfonds

In her video work and installation entitled “Triangular Stories,” created in 2012, Henrike Naumann (b. 1984) stages scenes from 1990s youth culture in East and West, between terror and amnesia. Through two films that give the impression of being home videos but are actually performed by actors, the viewer is introduced to the world of teenagers living in 1992. Whereas some adolescents in the East were looking for ideological role models (“Terror”), in the West they were more likely to be seeking escapism through drugs and travelling abroad (“Amnesia”).

Mädchen zeigt Mittelfinger — **Henrike Naumann, Triangular Stories, 2012**

It is no coincidence that Henrike Naumann focuses on the terrorist group NSU, which for too long existed unnoticed in Zwickau, developing its right-wing extremist plans close to the places of the artist’s own childhood and then after 1992, which Naumann calls the “last summer of innocence,” putting these plans into action. Against the backdrop of current social and political developments, this work continues to be highly topical. These two key works by Lewandowsky and Naumann were purchased for the Kunstfonds in 1995 and 2015 under the Saxon State Government's funding policy for supporting professional and emerging artists.

They are complemented by a nine-hour video work by Mario Pfeifer (b. 1981). In this 2016 work, the Dresden-born artist shows interview material of various people without any commentary or evaluation. In this way, he confronts the complex realities of life in East Germany after 1989. The nine one-on-one interviews reflect a range of individual forms of political and social engagement, consider personal experiences immediately before and after the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, and express the irritation and disorientation associated with the ‘Wende’ and the reunification of Germany, which are still felt to this day.

**Mario Pfeifer, Über Angst und Bildung, Enttäuschung und Gerechtigkeit, Protest und Spaltung in Sachsen/Deutschland, 2016** 4K-Video mit Ton, Albertinum | Galerie Neue Meister

The aim of the project “On Fear and Education, Disapointment and Justice, Protest and Division in Saxony, Germany” was not only to portray the debate on points of social conflict, but also to give space to the interviewees’ experiences, fears and hopes for the future.

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