about BERLIN BEI NACHT [1988]
There's no such place as West Berlin - ask them in 'East Germany'
- it's called 'Vestberlin', [translates: WESTberlin, WESTWORLD], but there's
still no such place. Ask them in Bonn, political capital of the Western
Bundesrepublik - where the elected representatives of 'free Berlin'
have no say - it's a constriction of speech. Like the pole at true North,
West Berlin is erected by language - at absolute West everywhichway is East.
Images and words, gathered during cold-war reconnaiscence,
reconstrue the average visitor's overview of the city, turning ruin into
facade. At night glaring neon makes shrapnel-scars [and ugly Marshal-planned
buildings alike] invisible. In that moment when we celebrate 750 years of
Berlin, history is collapsed. Lying in ruin behind the scenes, we have found
Berlin bei Nacht
Those who live there - behind the facade - know better. Some attempt
an antidote to the word-objects of Consumerism with spray-paint stolen from
'Bauhaus', [others use glue]. The paint, unlike neon, exposes what it covers -
but it too is primarily formal. It marks out a territory - the street - where a
stand is to be taken. This is no place for the very young or the very old, but
they are just the ones without choice. The ghetto is suddenly around them, the
very innocent and the very guilty.
For some, this is Paradise. At the very least it is a place where I
live and work. To make an accurate picture of such a state of affairs you must
rewrite the caption underlying it.
This is my work... Ich bin Berliner
Graham Budgett 1988 [for 'AND' magazine, London]
*[At that time, 'West Berlin' was an isolated capitalist enclave
in the middle of socialist 'East Germany', the Deutsche Demokratischer Republik.
The wall surrounding West Berlin came down in 1989 during the Mauerbruch
and the subsequent reunification of East and West.]
