In the interview, gallery owner Jennifer Chert talks about über Anna Banana's exhibition Proof Positive Germany Is Going Bananas which took place at Salon am Moritzplatz in Berlin in November 2020. It was an updated version of an exhibition from 1993 that had been presented in several cities in Germany and Hungary.
Anna Banana (born 1940 in Canada) was part of international Mail Art networks that connected her with different artists in the GDR, including Ruth Wolf-Rehfedt and Karla Sachse. In 1978, she came to East Berlin and held a Perfomance at Jürgen Schweinebraden's EP Galerie. Documents by the GDR's state security service indicate that Anna Banana initially intended to visit the mayor of East Berlin dressed in a banana costume as part of her performance - a daring plan which in the end she abandoned at the request of the gallery owner.
Just like her exhibition project on the role of bananas after the fall of the Berlin wall, Anna Banana's private friendships continued beyond the end of the GDR. For instance, in 1993 she participated in Karla Sachse's project Crossing - Knotting at the Nordbahnhof station in Berlin as part of the TranspORTale.
Works and documents related to Anna Banana can be consulted at the Mail Art Archive at Galerie ChertLüdde. Parts of the files have been digitalized, including several editions of her publications Banana Rag and Artistamp News: https://chertluedde.com/exhibition/anna-bananaproof-positive-germany-going-bananasopening-1st-november-2020-1200-2100until-14th-november-2020chertludde-salon-moritzplatzoranienstrase-58-10969-berlin/
Selected works by Anna Banana can also be seen on the website Mail Art Index: https://mailartists.wordpress.com/2007/11/26/anna-banana/
Bibliography
Smith, Briana, Experimental Art and Cultural Exchange in Late Cold War Berlin, in: Jarausch, Konrad H./Eisenhuth, Stefanie, Krause, Scott H. (eds.), Cold War Berlin. Confrontations, Cultures, Identities, London 2021, S. 151 - 164.
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