Dellbrügge & de Moll

*) Arno Breker in conversation with Andre Müller, 1979

18.09.2015-18.10.2015

Dellbrügge & de Moll question the relationship between art and power. In Graz, once known as "city of the popular uprising", they meet with great response. The starting point is the case of the Nazi state artist’s studio for Arno Breker in Berlin, where they themselves worked between 2001 and 2009. In 1938 Arno Breker was contracted to provide the capital city that was planned for the world – Germania – with monumental sculptures. This catapulted Hitler’s protégé into the role of the best-paid and most influential sculptor of his time. It was within this context that a prestigious state artist’s studio was created for Breker in Berlin, as desired by the Führer. Here, the designer of power translated national socialist ideology into a visual programme.

CONTINUITIES

Why, following the collapse of the Third Reich, did the Berlin municipal authorities let Breker’s master-class have the building’s eastern wing? And, moreover, for life? Was distancing himself from his teacher and promoter, and the leap into modern trends, a move that was tactical for his career? Why had he enrolled with Breker, of all people, in 1938? Was the conversion of the main block of the Nazi building into eight individual studios – undertaken by Berlin in the 1970s – an anti-monumental gesture? Was giving the rooms to a large number of international artists in the decades that followed an attempt at political decontamination? Why did the context of the building’s origins become forgotten? And why did Berlin end the studio programme in 2011? The master-class student’s widow set up a foundation in 1996. On her initiative – and against protests from the artists – the conversion of Breker’s state studio into a space for exhibitions and events around the work of his master-class student was set in motion. The space opened as "Kunsthaus Dahlem" in the monumental studio in June 2015. It was this that inspired Dellbrügge & de Moll to go back to the national socialist roots.

SETTING

Behind Alexander Silveri’s memorial – next to the ramparts in Graz – to the soldiers who died in both world wars, a narrow space opens up that cannot be seen from the park. It is here, behind the memorial, that the artists stage the results of their research. The memorial forms a tension-filled frame of reference. Its relocation in 2003 from the historical city crown in Karmeliterplatz to its new location outside the ramparts demonstrates how history can be overwritten today. History is an open construct. Art in public space portrays the conflict around the power of definition.

VOICES

Actors will speak the words of Breker, Hitler, Goebbels, ideologues and art historians, and thus make audible the talk about art in the time of the Nazis. What political dimension is attributed to art? Speaking and listening is a way of approaching the texts critically. 

Opening

Friday, 18.09.2015, at 4 pm

Behind the "Ehren- und Mahnmal für die Gefallenen beider Weltkriege" (1958-61) by Alexander Silveri near Paulustor.
Free admission.

Performance

18.09. - 02.10.2015, every day at 4 pm

Further Events 

18.09., 19.09., from 21.09. until 25.09. and 27.09. until 02.10.2015, every day at 4 pm

Verena Lercher speaks Hitler, Goebbels, Breker, ideologues and art historians of the Third Reich.

20.09. and 26.09.2015, on both days at 4 pm

Rudi Widerhofer speaks Arno Breker in an interview with Andre Müller in 1979, Elena Trantow speaks André Müller.

Venue

Behind the "Ehren- und Mahnmal für die Gefallenen beider Weltkriege" by Alexander Silveri near Paulustor, 8010 Graz bus stop "Paulustor", bus line 30

Publication

The accompanying book is available at Eichkatzl Stubn’ and in all shops of the Universalmuseum Joanneum.

This Project is part of the Architektursommer 2015. www.architektursommer.at

Supported by the Berlin Senate Cultural Affairs Department.