Artist and activist Bettina WitteVeen continues her decades-long exploration into war and the human condition in two site-specific installations in Berlin. Götterfunken feuertrunken der Erlkönig: whiteout has been installed in the former Soviet military town of Wünsdorf, forty kilometers south of Berlin, from June 17 until July 1, 2018. This is the first time these abandoned buildings and scarred terrain are used as an exhibition site. From October 28 until November 25, II.II.I8 Dämmerung will be on view at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, commemorating the centenary of the end of the First World War.

In these exhibitions, WitteVeen continues to pursue her practice of presenting her work at unique, historically important places, so as to turn them into a haunting reality. The New York-based German artist has created these two new site-specific installations to explore the influence of historical events on individuals, placing them into the diachronic context of current political and social discourse. Her fusion of film, photography, and sculpture become moving allegories of what is happening in the present, provoking an emotional response centered on empathy.

Götterfunken feuertrunken der Erlkönig: whiteout, Wünsdorf

Whiteout is inspired by four seemingly disparate sources - Goethe’s Erlkönig, the work of American physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the theories of the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and the recent advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and nanotechnology. These elements are woven together in, and also by, the location. Known as The Forbidden City, Wünsdorf served as the largest military base of the USSR in the west after 1945, designated as an exclusion zone for the former citizens of the German Democratic Republic until the withdrawal of the Russians in 1994. The complex history and physical condition of this site prompted WitteVeen to investigate pressing ethical questions at a time when humanity stands at the threshold of its greatest challenge: advancing into spheres that lie beyond its reach and control.

The walk through this exhibition begins at Wünsdorf’s former theater, with the film Götterfunken (Divine Spark). Here, WitteVeen weaves dance sequences into a narrative structure about the cosmic dance of life and insights into the origin of the universe. She recorded these scenes over a period of ten years, in Indonesia, Cambodia, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Cuba, and the United States of America.

In the former sports complex, the visitor descends into the deep basin of the empty indoor swimming pool to view the video Feuertrunken der Erlkönig (Drunk on Fire - the Erlking). This shows Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, who after the first successful nuclear weapon explosion quoted from Hindu scripture: “Now I have become death, destroyer of worlds.” The empty pool makes the viewer aware of the absence of life (no water) and joy (no swimmers). The soullessness of the place starkly contrasts to the life-affirming exuberance of Götterfunken. 

Opposite the video hangs the photograph entitled Singularity, with two robotic hands touching each other, reminiscent of Michelangelo’s fresco at the Sistine Chapel. In futurology, singularity refers to the moment when machines acquire the capability of developing on their own, without human intervention.

In a side wing of the indoor pool, the Erlking-Whiteout presents unsettling images of war robots, nano-technological, and biochemical weapons, warning about the annihilation of humankind through these new super-weapons. Furthermore, the obliteration of the private sphere through data (“man of glass”) is depicted in a large-scale image of the inside of Google’s search engine.

Outside, visitors walk toward a statue of Vladimir Lenin, crossing over ossified tar chunks just as if they were struggling on streets torn up by tanks. Leaning against the plinth of the statue are large photographs of murdered inmates and mass graves near the first Gulag on the Solovetsky Islands, overlaid with statistics about the atrocities that occured at the labour camps. Encircled by rusty barbed wire, these photographs are exposed to the elements, abandoned to their eventual destruction, much like the Forbidden City itself. Through this memorial, WitteVeen addresses the current and very pressing question of whether statues should be kept as testimony to history, or should they be removed.

WitteVeen remarks “I believe that our aptitude for, art, poetry, music, philosophy, and empathy as well as our scientific ingenuity distinguish us as humans. However, there are realms we should not enter. We don’t have the right to place ourselves above all creation. We are life that wants to live, surrounded by life – and we must remember this – that also wants to be alive.”

The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin has commissioned WitteVeen’s II.II.I8 Dämmerung to commemorate the centenary of the end of the First World War. This is an iconic memorial site dedicated to the atrocities of war, a building physically scarred by bombing, and also at the centre of the public square where there was a terrorist attack in 2016. In a side chapel, there will be split-screens videos of victims of war, such as children, refugees, and even animals, along with Altar of Redemption and Resurrection, a sculpture from WitteVeen’s New York exhibition When We Were Soldiers…once and young (2015). Outside, visitors can experience a walkable sound-sculpture, with a choir of voices reciting fragments of WWI poems in French, German, Russian, and English - the four languages spoken in Berlin in 1945, when the city was partitioned by allied troops. WitteVeen’s installation - the fifth part of her anti-war project - connects with Whiteout through a shared interest in the Russian Revolution, as well as her entire ouevre.

About Bettina WitteVeen

Bettina WitteVeen is a German artist and activist based in New York. Her longtime interest in history and the philosophy of law as well as her engagement for human rights are the conceptual foundation of her art. WitteVeen has exhibited internationally including in Toulouse, Berlin, and New York. In 2015, WitteVeen presented her epic installation When We Were Soldiers…once and young at the historic, long abandoned hospital at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York, with more than a hundred carefully staged photographs contemplating the contradictory themes of war and healing. WitteVeen’s works are held in many prominent private as well as public collections, such as the Whitney Museum of American Art.

For WitteVeen, art always has a timeless dimension, and although she works with historical material, her gripping installation creates an alarming sense of presence. At a time when we are flooded with news of ethical transgressions in business and politics on a daily basis, when artificial intelligence collects, accumulates and disseminates our intellectual property, her work has particular resonance. WitteVeen hopes her personal visual language will contribute to the emergence of a culture deeply rooted in humanism and pacifism.

Motivated by the ramifications of Donald Trump’s presidency in the United States and across the world, WitteVeen has founded the All Women’s Progress Party, a not-for-profit, independent organization that provides a platform for women’s rights and fights for social, political, and economic equality.

About Götterfunken feuertrunken der Erlkönig: whiteout 

Dates: June 17-July 1, 2018

Vernissage: Saturday, June 16, 2018, 4pm to 6pm

Press preview with the artist: June 19, 2018, 12-2pm

Location: Forbidden City of Wünsdorf

Former Military Barracks, Hauptallee 114, 15806, Zossen, Germany

Times: Monday-Friday 3pm-8pm, Saturday-Sunday 12pm-8pm

About II.II.I8 Dämmerung

Dates: October 28-November 25, 2018

Location: Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

Breitscheidplatz, 10789, Berlin, Germany