Albertinum: Focus Albertinum: House near a large forest. An illustrated podcast by Markus Draper

Focus Albertinum: House near a large forest

An illustrated podcast by Markus Draper

A house is the starting point of a modern fairy tale. This house is located in Dresden and has an interesting history. For a time, an outpost of the Soviet KGB resided here—opposite the Dresden headquarter of the Stasi (State Security Service of the former GDR). From 1985 to 1990, the young secret service officer Vladimir Putin also came and went here.

Exhibition Site Albertinum

DATES 15/05/2024—16/03/2025

Opening Hours daily 10—18, Monday closed Thursday to Saturday 10—21 (Caspar David Friedrich. Where it all started)

Admission Fees normal 12 €, reduced 9 €, under 17 free, groups (10 persons and more) 11 €

The house is part of the installation as a lifelike model, surrounded by trees and animals. Another model shows an “office” with scattered papers on the floor, as if it had just been abandoned. Could it be reconstructed crime scene? The narrator of the story is a fly sitting in front of an open window. Her voice sounds cheeky. She talks about the house, about Dresden, about the machinations of the KGB and the Stasi, about Putin's rise in the nomenklatura of the Soviet Union, about the fall of the GDR and the end of socialism, about political dealings and intrigues.

**Focus Albertinum: Haus in der Nähe eines großen Waldes**

The narrative is embedded in a stream of media images from news reports, documentaries and films. A “true” story in which historical facts, memories and visions are interwoven. Not a history lesson, but a fairytale-like, artistic reconstruction full of conjecture, ambiguities and gaps, which takes in many perspectives—as if observed through the faceted eyes of a fly. At the same time, it is a narration about storytelling and about the construction of history.