L'autre Allemagne hors les murs

Exhibitions

1990/01/19 — 1990/01/21

Two hundred artists from the GDR traveled to Paris for a three-day event. Entitled L'autre Allemagne hors les murs, the event featured exhibitions, concerts and performances, among other things, at the Halles de La Villette and other locations in the city.

An exchange between the East Berlin art historian Christoph Tannert and the Parisian journalist Maurice Najman resulted in the project L'autre Allemagne hors les murs (the other Germany outside the walls), which was financially supported by the French Minister of Culture Jack Lang. Furthermore, a team around the art historians Ulrich Domröse, Gabriele Muschter, Inga Kondeyne and Eugen Blume was involved in the organization. In the video interview, the artist Klaus Killisch talks about his participation in the three-day event and impressions that have remained in his memory.

Memories of Paris in an interview with Klaus Killisch, in his studio in Berlin-Pankow, 09.08.2022

On a weekend in January 1990, the halls of La Villette, formerly an old Parisian slaughterhouse, transformed into a three-day walk-in art event for the Parisian public. In performances, exhibitions and concerts, two hundred artists, actors, fashion designers, dancers, art collectives and others gave an insight into the young cultural landscape of the GDR. The scene had found new spaces of creative freedom in the last years of the GDR and continued to be shaped by the country's previous revolutionary upheavals. These experiences were expressed in the artworks and conveyed live in performances. One example is the work Stalingraben by Kurt Buchwald and Joerg Waehner. In their performance, the two artists question how power shapes people. Between marching music and propagandistic speech excerpts, the washed and scrubbed portrait of Stalin is processed with mashed potatoes and preserved in jars. Made literally and experientially on several levels of meaning, it is about the processing and purging of objects and doctrines. What remains at the end of the performance is an installation that stands on its own.

"Aucune complaisance dans la création est-allemande, inspiration expressioniste, critique tous azimut, dérision, caricature, et mélange des genres artistique: un mariage forcé par des années d'interdits" (No complacency in East German art creation - expressionist inspiration, criticism, mockery, caricature and mixing of artistic genres: a forced marriage by years of prohibition) announces a brief review of the event on the evening news of Jan. 19, 1990, on France Région 3.
The artists and their environment are described as "young, protesting, rebellious people who have been suppressed for a long time and are now letting off steam", and whose priority is to preserve their identity in the time and mood of socio-political upheaval.

The artists Kurt Buchwald and Joerg Waehner at the performance/installation "Stalingraben" in the Halles de la Vilette, Paris 1990.Courtesy of Kurt Buchwald and Joerg Waehner.

View of the performance/installation "Stalingraben" by Kurt Buchwald and Joerg Waehner at the Halles de la Vilette, Paris 1990. Courtesy of Kurt Buchwald and Joerg Waehner.

Impressions of "L'autre Allemagne hors les murs", with accompanying text from the film "La Villette" (1990) by Gerd Kroske. Courtesy of Joerg Waehner. Source: http://www.oe-ae.com/Timeline_1990.html

Impressions of the stay in Paris in the context of "L'autre Allemagne hors les murs", 1990. Courtesy of Joerg Waehner. Source: http://www.oe-ae.com/Timeline_1990.html

Excerpts from the performances "Die große Säuberung/Hinter großen Männern" at Galerie Weißer Elefant in Berlin (December 21, 1989) and "Stalingraben" at the Halles de la Villette in Paris (January 19-21, 1990). Courtesy of Kurt Buchwald and Joerg Waehner

In the same year of the art event, the documentary film La Villette was released by DEFA, which gives an insight into the exhibitions and interviews some of the artists.