In the week, preparations have begun for the preparation of the next collective exhibition with the indicative title “The wall to the wall”.
The exhibition The wall at the wall starts from the will of the three organizing artists, Gentile Polo, Antonello Serra and Claudio Cavalieri, to participate in the commemorations for the thirtieth year since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Art is life and life is art, therefore as the best way for three of the most prolific artists in the national and international context to set up an art exhibition involving fellow Berliners, who had the honor of painting on the Berlin Wall?
As the East German military began removing the heinous concrete barrier, graffiti artists rushed to tag the white, eastern side of the Wall (the Wall’s western face had been accessible and covered with murals for years).
An informal group of artists – including Schaefer – hit upon the idea of turning a mile-long stretch near the Ostbahnhof into the world’s largest open air gallery.
While keeping the demolition teams at bay, they invited 110 artists from 44 countries to paint on the Wall.
The initiative produced many of 1990s most enduring images: Dmitri Vrubel’s larger-than-life painting of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev kissing his East German counterpart Erich Honecker, Birgit Kinder’s iconic Trabant smashing through the Wall and Schaefer’s own, controversial Fatherland.
‘In the beginning we were spontaneous and quite disorganized,’ admitted Schaefer. ‘We thought that the gallery would last for no more than a year.’
But the first and last freely-elected East German government slapped a preservation order on the East Side Gallery, before it voted itself out of existence. The painted Wall became a protected historical monument. “Günther Schaefer interviewed by Rory MacLean for MEET THE GERMANS – GOETHE INSTITUT, September 2009)
Here then the artist Gentile Polo in talks to obtain the participation of Günther Schaefer, the colleague of Sardinian origins Fulvio Pinna
“In February 1990 I received the official task of opening the works, being the first, I chose […] the first segments near the Oberbaumbrücke, which was then closed.”
(from “Fulvio Pinna: I’ll tell you how art defeated the Wall” in IL MITTE – BERLIN by Emanuela Barbiroglio of 30 August 2013)
And also Jörg Weber, the East Side Gallery leader Kani Alavi and Gabriel Haimier author of the murals “The wall jumper […] a clear symbol of freedom that the Germans experienced during the fall of the wall” (from “The fall of the Berlin Wall, East Side Gallery” by Alba Surìs).
Among the Trentino artists are, in addition to Gentile Polo, the Sardinian Antonello Serra, Claudio Cavalieri of Event Art and two other artists still to be defined.
The inauguration of the collective exhibition should take place on the afternoon of Friday, April 5, 2019 at the splendid Mirana Tower of Thun Palace in Trento (Italy).
Thanks to the collaboration of Mr. Alenis Lauri, a wall of colored wooden bricks should obstruct the entrance to the exhibition and induce the public to demolish it piece by piece.
The demolition will recall the historical demolition of the sad Wall that divided the city of Berlin into two; each piece will also be an artistic souvenir containing theme quotes.
The details are, as mentioned, under definition but we can already anticipate the multi – sensorial performance of the versatile artist Paul Sark, between poetry music and the atmosphere of LIBRIDIS, object books made by Sark himself.
The requests for patronage, for coordination with Berlin, were also sent through Ms. Maria Pia Tessari from the Office of Twinning policies, and the estimate for organization costs.
The work is still long, including also the whole graphic part (posters, roll up advertising, booklet of the exhibition), set-up, catering and more; so we do not have to wait for the next updates, which we at the Gentile Polo Art Studio will take part in.
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(Lucia Martorelli – Gentile Polo Art Studio)