A Reflection on the Arts – New York in Berlin

After a year-long rebuilding programme, the House of World Cultures (HKW) will re-open its doors on August 23rd with an extensive New York Programme, scheduled to take place over the following three months. In conversation with Shaheen Merali – Head of the Department of Exhibition, Film and New Media and curator of the New York exhibition at HKW – we talked about Arts, New York and the new discourse direction of the HKW.

KMB*: The HKW announced a New York programme for the reopening of its space. How has the focus of HKW changed during this period?

SM**: For once in a life of an institution we had a break of one year. Now that, of course, influences the amount of research you can undertake having that whole year, because usually you are researching and programming in parallel. The second consideration is that it also allows us to reflect upon our work without having to produce and manage a concurrent programme. The areas which we are trying to arrange within the House are very important, as we are striving to make it truly ours, in the sense that it is the Berliners’ House, your House, my House, our House. In that sense it is about not so much teaching Berliners and Germans about internationalism or about multi-culturality or about artists from outside of Europe, but allowing them to examine their own levels of thinking and investigation. It is more about putting exhibitions in a programme, which says that this is about how does art reflect on our world and what is your position within that world and how does this art allow you to think it through.

KMB: It opens doors for reflection.

SM: Not only for reflection, but also it allows for a much more reflective position for the audience in Berlin. We hope to be able to do that by not being over determined, not to say “this is what you should look at”, “this is what you should understand”. Partly by allowing people to deepen their knowledge and understanding by a more welcoming approach to curation and art history - An institution such as HKW can and has played a major role in making the art and artists a part of reality rather then an exclusive terrain for collectors and the middle class. We have introduced design and interpretation within exhibition making that allows a more democratic approach to seeing. Recently, we have further fortified this with the new bookshop that is opening up. We are going to have areas which are even more dedicated as resource spaces, so people can look at the background information on the artists, on some of the themes and on some of the artists who may be not be presented, because we evidently cannot present everybody. The film and the exhibition programme is more integrated, so that film and exhibition work together to talk in a more integrated manner, maybe, to ascertain the position of film within the visual arts or the position of visual arts within film culture.

KMB: About the New York exhibition: Is it a dialogue between New York and Berlin or is it rather a portrait of New York?

SM: The exhibition opens in Berlin at the HKW and then it moves to the Queens Museum in New York in December 2007. So, there is a curatorial position taken about a city, New York in this instance. How do you curate and have an understanding of New Yorkers in the form of artists and film makers? Because, aesthetically they document issues, positions which they occupy, as well as possible areas of interest which may be emerging or have emerged and which have influenced a much wider culture. And New York is, in a sense, the centre of many convergences. Amongst them it is the centre of arts, of visual arts, because it has the largest amount of galleries, I think in the world. The relationship to art and visual arts is also very much an economic one; the collecting is very economically based. And, of course, advertising has been generated in New York where there is also a fashion industry, amongst other things. So, in many ways, all of these things are important for the visual arts around the world to look at, to see how that has been generated, what are the mistakes within it, what are the profound inventions within it and how other cities can learn from it. Of course, some of the galleries from New York have opened galleries in different cities and galleries from different cities will also open galleries in New York to take advantage of the market. What we are trying to do, to go back to your question, is: What is this dialogue? The dialogue happens when the exhibition travels to two cities. It is very specifically about one city, which is New York, but is curated by somebody who lives and works in Berlin. It is an outsider’s view of New York, which is going back to New York and is a view which is also an outsider’s view of New York for Berlin, because I don’t come from Berlin. The focus for me within the exhibition has been to look at works of art which have been important or artists, who have been important for many years, who are living and working in New York, who may not necessarily come from New York, but have made New York their home.

KMB: It has a large scope, because you start from Marcel Duchamp and work up until now.

SM: Once, identity was about oneself, but now it becomes more about one city, it is no longer a monolithical construct. This idea of something changing is also an aspect of New York, because New York also changes through the influences of the people who live within it. New York is also like a port, like a place where people land and from there go to other places in America. After the Second World War, many artists from Europe, like Duchamp, landed in New York and made New York their second home. It is something that is incredibly vibrant and that vibrancy is something that has been happening to Berlin or is happening with Berlin. The aesthetic development just happened in New York through, let’s say Duchamp, or the German born artists, Hans Haacke or Josephine Meckseper going to New York and living there, or also Tavares Strachan, who comes from the Bahamas and lives in New York. We talk about globalisation, we talk about migration. Aesthetics also moves with people. New York provides valuable place, an example of a space for artists to make work and for art to develop, and part of the exhibition is about that. So, for the House it is also the first time, for many years, in which we are looking at the conceptual development from a space, not necessarily just talking about that space. So, we are not talking about New York, but rather about what New York is for the arts.

* KMB: Katerina Valdivia Bruch for Kunst Magazin Berlin
** SM: Shaheen Merali

Text and interview: Katerina Valdivia Bruch

Published in: Kunst Magazin Berlin, July 2007

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