Trans-Atlantic Symbol Turns 50

New York Meets Berlin as House of World Cultures Re-Opens

By Cameron Abadi in Berlin

The House of World Cultures, a gift from the US government to Berlin, is turning 50. Newly renovated, it is celebrating its re-opening and the anniversary with a major exhibition dedicated to New York -- even though trans-Atlantic relations are not what they were in 1957.

Fifty years ago next month, an American government delegation officially opened the Congress Hall on the banks of Berlin’s Spree River. The futuristic building, designed by the American architect Hugh Stubbins and located just a stone's thrown from the Berlin Wall, was a gift from the US government to Berlin -- a gesture of goodwill and commitment to the German people during the icy depths of the Cold War.

To reciprocate the trans-Atlantic gesture of goodwill, Germany has paid for a thorough renovation of the Congress Hall -- nicknamed the "pregnant oyster" by locals because of its curved form -- over the past year to coincide with the 50th anniversary. The much-loved building, which was re-named the House of World Cultures in 1989, re-opens Thursday with a festival dedicated to New York.

“The Congress Hall was built as a testament to freedom in the Cold War world, freedom that was certainly represented by the United States,” Bernd Scherer, director of the House of World Cultures, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “And after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the question of freedom has become a question of dealing with globalization. It’s only natural that we’d take the opportunity now to join these two notions of freedom by taking a look at contemporary New York.”

Scherer did in fact toy with the idea of devoting the exhibition to the US as a whole, but rejected the idea as too ambitious. “It was simply too big a topic,” he admits. “We settled on New York as a more accessible and more relevant way into a discussion about America and modernity.”

No Longer Cute and Cuddly

The festival, which features an art exhibition, a film series and a music festival, offers an intense consideration of the continuing cultural relevance of post-9/11 New York City -- motivated at least partly by the desire to patch up relations between Germany and the US, which are in need of some renovation themselves.

Despite the desire for trans-Atlantic harmony, the American artists represented don't pull any punches in their critique of the US. David Hammons' 1990 work “African-American Flag” is a cotton Stars and Stripes with the colors changed to green, red and black, while Jon Kessler’s installation “The Palace at 4 a.m.” is a disorienting, dystopian gauntlet of whirring video cameras and bloodied GI Joe dolls that is supposed to represent the loss of American innocence since 9/11. "The piece has been very well received here in Germany, but for whatever reasons a lot of galleries in America balked at picking it up," Kessler says.

For added resonance in his installation, Kessler has incorporated a picture of Berlin Zoo's celebrity polar bear Knut with a bullet hole in his head. "America is just like Knut," he says. "We used to be cute and cuddly, and now we’re out of control."

Hopes and Disappointments

Scherer insists that Berlin could learn a lot by looking to New York, which he calls the exemplary modern city. “Many modern phenomena, such as the history of immigration or the tensions between periphery and city center, can be observed there better than anywhere else," he says.

Shaheen Merali, curator of the visual art portion of the festival agrees: “New York has been a city invested with the greatest hopes and it has also inspired the greatest disappointments.”

The festival also reflects a long-standing cultural dialogue between the two cities. In the past decade there has been a steady exodus of artists from New York to the German capital, attracted by the city's cheap rents and anything-goes atmosphere, and many of the artists represented at the New York festival have been to Berlin before.

And the relationship is not without a certain rivalry. It’s long been an open secret that Berlin is hoping to usurp New York’s role as the world’s capital for creative types -- an image Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit tried to promote with his famous description of the German capital as “poor but sexy.” Rather than a celebration of New York’s relevance, the exhibition might be seen by some as a passing of the torch.

Openly Anti-American

In any case, the New York festival is an unusual venture for the House of World Cultures. Until now, the prestigious cultural institution had generally interpreted its mandate to display non-European art as a mission to expose and exhibit overlooked culture from non-Western countries.

To that extent, many of its exhibitions and events have not only been ambivalent about the West in general, but openly critical -- in particular of America and its perceived imperialism.

A case in point was 2003's “DisORIENTation” a major exhibit of politically oriented Middle Eastern artists that had its opening on the eve of America’s “shock and awe” bombing campaign against Iraq. Many of those on the podium that night were unsparing in their criticism of the Bush administration’s intentions.

And it does seem that the trans-Atlantic relationship is a shadow of its Cold War self. Though President Dwight Eisenhower presided over the opening of the Congress Hall in 1957, and President John F. Kennedy visited the building during his famous 1963 trip to West Berlin, no prominent American politicians are expected to visit for the duration of the current exhibition. Even German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s speech on Sept. 19, the anniversary of the building's opening, will fail to draw his colleagues from across the Atlantic -- despite being billed as a "major trans-Atlantic address."

But America’s presence in Berlin is still strong. Scherer notes that John F. Kennedy concluded his 1963 speech at the Congress Hall with the line, “I will soon be leaving Berlin, but America is here to stay.”

In 1963, that earned an extended round of applause. Scherer wouldn’t venture a guess as to what sort of reaction it would get from Germans today.

The New York festival runs from Aug. 23 through Nov. 4 at the House of World Cultures (John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin).