Interventions into Architecture

In the video Okwui Enwezor and Sabine Brantl give a detailed presentation of the artistic interventions currently on view on Haus der Kunst's southern façade. These works explore the building's architecture and National Socialist past.

Mel Bochner created "The Joys of Yiddish", an installation mounted on the museum's façade, for his 2013 retrospective at Haus der Kunst. The linking of the offender's color with the victim's language in the yellow and black banner gives rise to a tension and subtle provocation, both typical elements in Bochner's work.

With Christian Boltanski's "Resistance" (1993–94) and Gustav Metzger's "Travertine/Judenpech" (1999), Haus der Kunst has reactivated – for the Archive Gallery's second presentation – the first two artistic interventions designed specifically for the building's façade and portico. While Metzger explores his own fate in "Travertine/Judenpech", Boltanski pays homage to former members of an anti-fascist resistance group in his work "Rote Kapelle."