Berliner Mauer in Los Angeles

16. Oktober 2009. Die Berliner Mauer steht wieder: acht Original-Teile wurden gestern in Los Angeles, Berlins ältester Partnerstadt, aufgestellt. Am Wilshire Boulevard, einer der wichtigsten Hauptverkehrsachsen Los Angeles, enthüllten Stadtrat Tom LaBonge und der deutsche Generalkonsul Wolfgang Drautz die Installation; sie ist Teil des Mauer-Projektes, mit dem das Wende Museum L.A. des 20. Jahrestags des Mauerfalls gedenkt. Die Ausstellung „The Wall Along Wilshire“ wird noch bis zum 14. November zu sehen sein. Anfang November kommen zwei weitere Mauersegment hinzu. Mit 12 Metern Breite wird die Mauer in L.A. dann der längste Abschnitt außerhalb Berlins sein. Zu den teilnehmenden Künstlern gehört der Franzose Thierry Noir, der seit Anfang der 80er Jahre in Berlin lebt und zu den ersten gehörte, die Mauer bemalten. Zum weiteren Veranstaltungsprogramm rund um das Projekt gehört auch ein Auftritt von Ute Lemper. www.wallproject.org

20 Jahre Mauerfall

• Zeitzeugen-Projekt “Ungeteilt” (oral history)
• June 25 - October 31 / November – Summer 2010 / Saxony
  Travelling Exhibition
  The exhibit “Demokratie versprühen” evolved from of a youth project and will be travelling through Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Plauen and Bautzen.
• October 14-16/ Leipzig
  Conference
  International academic conference “1989 in globalgeschichtlicher Perspektive” will partly focus on the issue of the global role of the U.S. “Die neue weltpolitische Rolle der USA als verbliebene Supermacht und die gravierenden Veränderungen in Mittel- und Südamerika” (PD participation tbd). The conference will be working on/with papers of representatives of American universities. Organizer: Prof. Matthias Middell, University of Leipzig, Global and European Studies Institute.
• October 22-24 / Leipzig
  Conference
  The international conference “Democracy in the 21st Century” will focus on issues related to democracy building in Central and Eastern Europe, taking into account a Russian and U.S. perspective - former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and James Baker were invited, both did not accept. Adequate substitutes are currently being explored. Target group: the broad public, especially young people. Organizers: city of Leipzig, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs in cooperation with Springer and MDR.
• October 30 / Nordhausen
  Thüringer Jazzmeile/ “Jazz grenzenlos”
  Concert of Adam Holzman Quartet (USA), Cyriaci-Kapelle Nordhausen.
• November 4-6 / Dresden
  On November 5, Dr. Hope Harrison, Director, Institute for European, Russian & Eurasian Studies, George Washington University will be giving a public lecture/discussion on the subject “The Berlin Wall – the reasons it was built, how/why it fell and what has been done with it since?”
• Ongoing programs: ConGen Leipzig school book project “Jenseits der Mauer”
  In cooperation with Embassy Berlin “USA-GDR: Twenty Years Later – Oral History Project” “The Peaceful Revolution in our Consular District” – ConGen Leipzig intern’s research project
• September 17 - October 18 / New York City
  “LEIPZIG CALLING: Twenty Years after the Iron Curtain” In cooperation with The New York Academy of Art, Leipzig’s International Art Programme LIA recently hosted several American artists in Leipzig and has now been invited to present a special exhibition in New York. On display are works by eminent and emerging contemporary artists who have chosen to live and work in Leipzig and who respond in their art to this German city and its history and present. PD LEipzig will support Leipzig-based curator Anna-Louise Kratzsch, art critic and director of LIA to prepare and set-up the exhibit.
• 20 years of Fall of the Wall and United Germany (November 9)
  Embassy BERLIN is involved in the following programs:
• October 2-January 10, 2010
  Exhibition opening "Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures" The exhibition is a Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH cooperation that was inaugurated in Los Angeles in February, from where it travelled to Germany via Nuremberg (May to September) to Berlin. The opening in Nuremberg at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum on May 26, was attended by Consul General Eric Nelson. Ambassador Philip D. Murphy gave welcome remarks and opened the show at the Deutsches Historisches Museum on October 2 in Berlin. For more details see: http://www.dhm.de/ausstellungen/kunst-und-kalter-krieg/index.html In conjunction with the exhibition the symposium “Art in the Cold War” will be taking place on December 4 (see below).
• October 5-15 / Berlin and Potsdam
  Dancing to Connect – The Fall of the Wall This dance project brings together New York’s Battery Dance Company and hundreds of students from Berlin and Brandenburg. The students, from diverse backgrounds and often from underserved communities, participate in week-long workshops with the dancers from Battery Dance. With their help, the students themselves create the choreography for these wonderful performances. The professional dancers from the company also perform separately in the shows. This generation of students is too young to remember the events in late 1989. The workshops not only help the students express themselves through dance but also provide an opportunity for them to initiate a dialogue with the past and to stimulate historical reflection within families and communities. The performances take place on October 13, 2009 at the Nikolaisaal in Potsdam and on October 15, 2009 at the Fontane-Haus in Berlin, both at 7 p.m.
• October 22-25
  Marshall Forum on Transatlantic Affairs With “20 Years after 1989 – Looking Back and Ahead. Are the Ideals of Democracy and Market Economy Still Valid” the conference will be discussing a row of topics connected to the events in 1989 and to current issues on the global agenda, such as the transformation of Europe, the change of NATOs role, the impact of 9/11 – from Bush to Obama, climate change in times of economic crisis and a retrospective on 1998. Ambassador Philip D. Murphy will give remarks at the opening of the conference on October 22.
• November 2, 2009 – March 2010
  “11/9 <-> 9/11” Exhibition project by a group of artists from Berlin and New York: the artists explore from a personal angle the effects and implications of two contemporary historical events: the fall of the Wall in Berlin/Germany and the 9-11 attacks in New York. The works of the U.S. artists will be exhibited in Berlin, those of the German artists in New York. Embassy involvement consists of a small grant, recommendation letters and providing a representative at the exhibition opening in Berlin. Opening of exhibition in New York: November 2, 2009 Opening of exhibition in Berlin: March 2010
• November 8/9 The Wall Project, Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles
  Artists Thierry Noir, Kent Twitchell and Shepard Fairey will design 32 recreated pieces of the Berlin wall, which will be erected across Wilshire Blvd., to be torn down at midnight in form of a artistic ceremony on November 8 corresponding to November 9 in Berlin. The midnight ceremony will feature a performance by renowned chanteuse Ute Lemper, after which the Wall across Wilshire will be toppled by artists featured in The Wall Project. The public can acquire tickets to join The Wende Museum at a special celebration before the ceremony on November 8 at 5900 Wilshire Boulevard from 8 to 11pm. The evening will include Ute Lemper in concert, a DJ set by artist Shepard Fairey, a silent auction, curator-led tours of The Wende Museum's new exhibition Collected Fragments, as well as ceremonies at the Wall on Wilshire. For more details: www.wallproject.org
• November 9 “Fest der Freiheit”
  The fall of the Wall will be celebrated on November 9 with a festive act at the Brandenburg Gate and state representatives, contemporary witnesses and senior personalities. A highlight of the event will be a 'domino effect' staging of the symbolic fall of the Wall when more than 1,000 oversized 'domino' stones designed by young people will be made to fall - stretching from the Reichstag through to Potsdamer Platz, marking the old route of the Wall that ran past the Brandenburg Gate. PA Berlin has sponsored a U.S. Embassy domino stone designed by 12th grade students from the Torhorst Schule Oranienburg (Brandenburg). Planned AMB/DCM involvement: attendance of the „Fest der Freiheit“ at the Brandenburg Gate and photo op with Embassy stone and students (November 5). 2. for further details on the “Fest der Freiheit”, please scroll to section B. 20 / 60-Anniversary Programs by German Government & Berlin Senate
• December 3
  Joint MfA-Embassy Conference on the 1989 events’ impact on the transatlantic relations Half-day conference with keynote addresses and panels with American and German contemporary witnesses and experts discussing the past and the future aspects of this historical event with a focus on transatlantic relations and foreign policy. Possible AMB/DCM involvement: Opening of the conference with remarks; the conference could be concluded with a seated dinner (40-60 people) for the conference participants and top-level guests, ideally at the Ambassador’s residence with the Ambassador as dinner speaker.
• December 4
  Symposium “Art in the Cold War” at the Deutsches Historisches Museum with one American speaker. The symposium will take place in connection with the exhibit “Art of Two Germanys”.
• December 17
  Lecture within the series “20 Years Fall of the Wall on “American Culture and the Cold War” Audience: students from the Kennedy Institute (literature, culture, history). Host: Andreas Etges, Professor of History. Speaker: Richard Pells, Professor of History, University of Texas, 6-8 PM
• Ongoing programs: USA-GDR: Twenty Years Later – Oral History Project The project highlights the American connections to the GDR by an interactive online oral history collection designed to record the reciprocal impressions of GDR citizens and Americans who lived through this period of history. To document this unique relationship, the impressions of both Americans who lived and visited in the GDR and citizens of the GDR who came in touch with Americans are being recorded. In cooperation with the Leipzig Consulate, PA Berlin has identified interview partners including Foreign Service officers and local staff from the former U.S. Embassy in East Berlin, Americans with other institutional and personal contacts in the GDR, and former GDR citizens. Their interviews will be posted on a YouTube page, with appropriate links from the Mission website. In addition to video clips, text comments and photographs, the site will feature a timeline of the political events that led to unification, including the commitment of successive American presidents, FRG Ostpolitik, Perestroika, and the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR as reference points to topics mentioned in the interviews. So far the project has been presented at America@yourlibrary events in Frankfurt/Oder and Potsdam, more regional events are planned. See: http://germany.usembassy.gov/usa-ddr/