Diego Castro: Memories of Heidelberg KriegsblindKriegsblind undund FriedenstaubFriedenstaub
“Anerkennung der Ostgrenze Afghanistans”, Aktion vor der Deutschen Botschaft, Warschau, 2010 Diego Castro: Memories of Heidelberg
Kriegsblind und Friedenstaub
Gitte Bohr - Galerie für Kunst und politisches Denken, Berlin.
In a solo-exhibition at Gitte Bohr Gallery, Diego Castro shows videos, drawings and an installation from a series of works, which deals with the return of an expansive and warlike Germany in the globalised context. In the works, he sardonically makes ambiguous connections between Germany’s foreign deployment of troops and politically incorrect references. A renaissance of restorative national politics is being approached with acid-tongued humour. Special guests: Erika Steinbach, Willy Brandt, Carl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Pablo Picasso, Horst Köhler, Rudolf Hess, Nicole, Blondi and others.
text by Eva May
top: “Picasso-Retrospektive Kundus”, acrylic and wax on wood, behind closed grey curtain bottom: with curtain opened. measurements: 190 x 240 cm On February 6, 2003, the then U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell presented the UN and the world with so-called evidence of Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction. This became the basis for the invasion of Iraq a little over a month later. In a strange and symbolic gesture, the U.S. government had opted for hiding the large tapestry reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica that hangs in the vestibule of the UN building in which the presentation took place. The horrors of this famous anti-war painting were meant to remain un-associated with what was going on before its blindfolded eyes. But the more clear it became that the invasion was based on a lie, the more that curtain became not only a symbol of the veil of deception, but something that could be read as a gesture of acknowledgement of the power of art and the relevance of Picasso’s message with his painting and stated hin his famous quote: ”Il faut créer des images inacceptables.” The presence of the curtain only made the picture’s critical eyes more piercing. In the work Picasso Retrospektive Kundus (2011), the curtain hides a painted copy of the Guernica with slight modifications, showing the bull with the features of former Minister of foreign affairs, Carl- Theodor zu Guttenberg, and the frightened looking person shining a light on the scene looking slightly like Chancellor Angela Merkel. The painting, while retaining its original depictions of the bombing by the Germans on April 26, 1937 of the small Basque village, brings another level to this reference to German wars of aggression by linking it simultaneously to the country’s participation in the war in Afghanistan and especially the killing of civilians in Kundus. The artist, who refers to himself as a pacifist, sees in the bombing of Kundus not only history repeating itself, but also an unresolved conflict with the German constitution. With the quotes hanging next to the painting, Castro refers to a scandalous interview with the former Federal President of Germany, Horst Köhler, who stated the need for the country to defend its economic interests on an international scale – if necessary also with military means. The word “Retrospektive” written on the painting thus becomes an ambivalent memento of German warfare, disguised as a joke. Die Erneuerung des Kniefalls von Warschau Super 8, transferred to video, 2 min, 2010
The work Die Erneuerung des Kniefalls von Warschau (2010) uses a similar strategy of actualising a historical event with many and complex political meanings for the German state. In the short clip, Castro re-enacts the so-called “Kniefall von Warschau” (the Warsaw Genuflection) of the then German Chancellor Willy Brandt on December 7, 1970. On the day when Germany and Poland signed the Treaty of Warsaw, which guaranteed the borders of Poland, he visited the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto. As he kneeled in front of it, he was the first German Chancellor to publicly show regret for the attack on Poland. The film was shot in Warsaw on Super-8 film in October 2010, in the context of the first German war of aggression since 1945 and in the midst of the scandal around the politician and member of the Bund der Vertriebenen (Federation of Expelees), Erika Steinbach, who had claimed that the German attack on Poland in 1939 was only an answer to Polish mobilisation. The performance-reenactment thus, on the one hand, acts out a frustration with the failure of learning from history, and on the other, it puts into perspective the question of Germany’s territorial politics.
(left: “Blondi”, pencil on paper, A2, 2010) Republik der Gespenster The exhibition shows an attempt at and a belief in the possibility of creating a political critique through collage-film, 16min. video, 2010 images. Castro draws on both hegemonic and counter-images in works which exploit the many levels and contextual meanings that images always have, and the possibility of refracting and détourning their The collage filmRepublik der Gespenster (2009) deals with the persisting ghosts of authoritarian character associations. His strategy works through a collision of images from different contexts that creates a in the German mind. Through montage, it links clips from the film Der Untertan by Wolfgang Staude that dialectical moment in which a new thought can occur. Adding sarcasm, anger and the cartoon’s tactic of show the authoritarian chatacter of the fraternities in the Wilhelminian era with images from Germany, twisting images and words, he tries to overcome the stereotypical German post-war culture of contrition. Year Zero by Roberto Rossellini. The latter shows the tragic story of a German boy, who, immediately By drawing historical images into a contemporary context, not only the tragedy of history’s repetition is after the war, experiences the aporia of the sudden disappearance of the ideals he was brought up with made visible. Also the images’ potentials for the present time are activated. Thus, in the reenactment of during the Third Reich. His fate is symbolic of a whole generation, brought up with authoritarianism Brandt’s kneeling, a wider meaning present in Brandt’s gesture, its place in the long history of German and indoctrinated with absolute obedience. The images of the boy’s suicide in the rubble of Berlin are territorial interests, which did not end with that event, is pointed to. And this is underlined through the again juxtaposed with a clip of Rudi Dutschke responding to verbal assaults on his person before the contextualisation with the other works in the exhibition. attempted assassination of him on April 11, 1968. The subtitles show quotes from a letter Dutschke wrote while recovering from the assault to the offender Josef Bachmann, a Neo-Nazi, who had shot him three Castro uses these strategies to draw connections between the historical and political events and the ideas times in the head. Bachmann, like the boy in Rossellini’s film, later committed suicide. The result of the of which they are expressions. The show’s title refers to a recurring image of German restoration: montage is a strong comment on the structural persistence of the psychology of National Socialism and its disasters, even long after the war was over. Heidelberg, the romantic university town, which in popular culture has become symbolic of a construction of precious, positively connoted nationalism. In songs, or in Christian Kracht’s notorious novel Faserland, it appeals to an amnesic image of Germany, obscuring the blatant nationalism present in Heidelberg’s long tradition of fraternities. It is all put into perspective by the drawing of the singer Nicole, who, according to the magazine Stern, stood for the only victory (before Lena Meyer-Landrut) of Germany in the twentieth century with her Eurovision song Ein bißchen Frieden.
top: exhibition view, left: projection of “Die Erneuerung des Kniefalls”, middle; “Beim besten Willen”, arrangement of 6 drawings, right: projection of “Republik der Gespenster”
Beim Besten Willen
Pages 10 - 16:
10 “Beim besten Willen, Heidelberg” shows a copy of an old view on the “Burg” in the old city of Heidelberg. The clouds in tzhe sky subtly form a swastika. The title -like the arrangement of the draw- ings- refers to Martin Kippenberger’s infamous painting: “Ich kann beim besten Willen kein Hakenkreuz erkennen (By no strech of the imagination I can detect a swastika)”
11 “Paranoia” shows a copy of a drawing made by Picasso for Stalin’s birthday, published in 1953 in a communist newspaper. It draws on the main principle of survival strategy in Stalin’s Russia: Paranoia, but also showed a great momentum of failure of western recuperation of Picasso, who never distanciated himself from his communist affiliation. Why should he? He was a communist, of course. The reaction in the western world to Picasso’s praise of Stalin, mirrored the inquisitorial paranoia of the USSR into the western culture. Even in 2008, Lene Bergs reproduction of the drawing on the outside of Cooper Union was taken down by CU’s administration in anticipatory obedience, as CU was afraid of not being PC or having to face law suits. The two Picasso references connect with the Guernica reproduction behind the curtain, making an allusion to Germany’s dirty little secrets. A brew of warfare, economic neo-imperial- ism and a nationalism masked with humanitariarist political correctness. In the society of control the rulers seem to have yet on fear of not looking politically correct.
12 “Deutschland’s einziger Sieg”, Germany sole victory, shows 17-year-old European Song Contest winner Nicole, who conquered the world in 1982 with “Ein bisschen Frieden” ( A little peace). Speaks for itself...
13 “Generation Vollwichs”, shows two fraternity students, from a fencing corporation in full gala gear (meaning “Vollwichs”, which equally sounds like “total wanker” in German). Heidelberg is a home to lots of fraternities, some of them duelling. The fraternities have been in the past, and still are, incubators for conservative, nationalist, militaristic and even fascist tendencies, that have risen up to the highest strats of society and still do so today. The student’s strong bonds persist until long after the studies and cre- ate obscure affiliations in the leading class. Heinrich Mann has analysed this mentality in his novel “Der Untertan” (The loyal subject), whis is also being quoted in the present video “Republik der Gespenster”. Today these fraternities remain the home for a desquiting Generation X of the reactionnaire.
14 “Solo los paranoicos sobreviven” (Only the paranoid will survive), from an image of Picasso speak- ing in front of the congress of the comunist internationale in Warsaw, sometime during the cold war, closing the circle of multiple connections between Picasso, the cold war (Warsaw) and german warfare.
15 “Memories of Heidelberg”, amercian singer Gus Backus’s version of the homonymous successful post-war Schlager, drawing -like it’s famous precursor “Ich hab mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren” (I have lost my heart in Heidelberg)- on the combination of patriotism and sentimental feeling over a lost love. Sung in German by an american GI.