HEIMWEH Till Brönner, Open Memory Box Archiv, Klaus Staeck

Harald Falckenberg, a collector from Hamburg, curates the exhibition “HEIMWEH” at Villa Schöningen, marking the tenth anniversary of the villa and the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. He collaborates with his friend and artist Bernd Dinter for this exhibition. The starting point was the remarkable photographic presentation by jazz musician Till Brönner about the Ruhr region at the Duisburg Museum Küppersmühle in 2019, titled “Melting Pott.” For a year, Brönner captured everyday motifs, spontaneous portraits, and architecture as very personal objets trouvés.

In the current exhibition at Villa Schöningen, Brönner’s photos have been completely reselected and supplemented with current photographs. Additionally, two more thematic complexes by filmmaker Alberto Herskovits (Stockholm/Berlin) and Klaus Staeck have been added to Villa Schöningen. Without dogmatic depth, the exhibition explores how people who are subject to authoritarian and economically determined structures shape their daily lives.

Alberto Herskovits possesses perhaps the world’s largest collection of private 8mm film recordings from the GDR. In 2019, he compiled the documents created between 1947 and 1990 into loops under the title “Open Memory Box.” This little-known 8mm film material spans 415 hours.

Klaus Staeck, who grew up in Bitterfeld, needs no introduction. He is one of the pioneers in representing the history of the GDR. His photographs are essential in an overview exhibition. He is represented with some prominent works and draws attention to typical order relationships of the GDR with his grotesque work “Parkordnung” (Park Rules) directly in the field of view of the Glienicke Bridge.

The presented works of the three artists cover a period of approximately 40 years. The villa’s architectural aspects, built in the Arcadian style, indicate the context of the presentation and set accents that make the special connections of the exhibited art evident.

Harald Falckenberg