reviews three colours
Ayse erkmen, Whitish,
2007 (after ronan & erwan
Bouroullec, Algue, 2004),
900 x 330 cm. Photo:
roland horn. courtesy the
artist and Galerie Barbara
Weiss, Berlin
Xiv rohkunstbau:
three Colours – white
schloss sAcroW, PotsdA m
15 July – 26 AuGust
For Berliners, the annual Rohkunstbau exhibition is a welcome excuse German stereotypes: a woman singing Wagner, a man facing a Romantic
for a summer trip to the countryside, promising cultural distractions landscape (like a painting by Caspar David Friedrich), a skinhead standing
and a pleasant afternoon on the grounds of a stately home. This year in front of a foggy swamp, German shepherds barking in a wood and a
Rohkunstbau has moved to Schloss Sacrow, a slightly rundown palace with passing ship crowded with people waving German flags. There is history
some royal connections near Potsdam (the move follows the sale of last everywhere, and the images of neo-Nazis roaming the German landscape,
year’s location). The exhibition is the second of three, all following Krysztof of the East German border police training their dogs at Sacrow and of last
Kieslowski’s film trilogy on the ideals of the French Revolution – Blue year’s unbridled football fans are twisted into an aestheticised nightmare
(1993), White (1994) and Red (1994), liberty, equality and fraternity – and of everything that threatens the ideals and values of modern German
their repercussions in contemporary society. society.
Curator Mark Gisbourne develops the theme of equality into an Thomas Demand’s photograph Attempt (2005) focuses on another
interrogation of German society’s aspirations and heritage, alongside a political threat: the failed terrorist attack on the Federal Prosecutor’s Office
few loosely connected colour-coded pieces. Ayşe Erkmen, for example, in Karlsruhe in 1977. Modelled on a press photograph, Attempt portrays the
has created a white organic screen (Whitish, 2007) from Ronan & Erwan homemade rocket launcher used in the attack (the rocket did not fire). Like
Bouroullec’s identical modular Algue designs for Vitra in 2004; and Thomas other works here, it evokes violence and misguided political aspirations that
Rentmeister piles crisply folded white linen (in many subtle shades) across flout human rights. Untitled (2006–7), a series of drawings by Gil Marco
an entire wall, all the while upsetting the clean order by inserting fluffed-up Shani, can be read in a similar way. His depictions of violence by military
cotton swabs and tampons, sugar cubes and polystyrene pellets between personnel, of injuries and of sexual oppression, casually interspersed with
the sheets. quite innocent animal drawings, reveal the universality of such imagery.
Central to the exhibition is the rather odd Fingermalerei (Finger The parklands outside Schloss Sacrow, a border zone with fine views of
Painting) (1969), by Gerhard Richter, painted entirely in grey, a colour Glienicke Bridge, where hostages and spies where exchanged during the
traditionally seen as the contamination and obscuring of clean, innocent Cold War, offer a similar lesson. Axel Lapp
white by black. Here, though, the piece seems to have been selected more
for the artist’s biography: for his flight from East to West Germany (all the
more topical for Schloss Sacrow’s location on the inner German border),
and for his status as a German artist. Julian Rosefeldt, in his four-screen
video projection The Ship of Fools (2007), combines the most potent of
165 artreview
NEW_October_REVIEWS.indd 19 4/9/07 12:44:33
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164  |  Page 165  |  Page 166  |  Page 167  |  Page 168  |  Page 169  |  Page 170  |  Page 171  |  Page 172  |  Page 173  |  Page 174  |  Page 175  |  Page 176  |  Page 177  |  Page 178  |  Page 179  |  Page 180  |  Page 181  |  Page 182