Memories of Heidelberg

Diego
Diego Castro:
Castro:
Memories
Memories of
of
Heidelberg
Heidelberg
Kriegsblind und Friedenstaub
Kriegsblind und Friedenstaub
“Anerkennung der Ostgrenze Afghanistans”,
Aktion vor der Deutschen Botschaft, Warschau, 2010
Diego Castro:
Memories of
Heidelberg
Kriegsblind und Friedenstaub
Gitte Bohr - Galerie für Kunst und politisches Denken, Berlin.
In a solo-exhibition at Gitte Bohr Gallery, Diego Castro shows videos, drawings and
an installation from a series of works, which deals with the return of an expansive
and warlike Germany in the globalised context. In the works, he sardonically makes
ambiguous connections between Germany’s foreign deployment of troops and politically
incorrect references. A renaissance of restorative national politics is being approached
with acid-tongued humour. Special guests: Erika Steinbach, Willy Brandt, Carl-Theodor zu
Guttenberg, Pablo Picasso, Horst Köhler, Rudolf Hess, Nicole, Blondi and others.
text by Eva May
top: “Picasso-Retrospektive Kundus”, acrylic and wax on wood, behind closed grey curtain
bottom: with curtain opened. measurements: 190 x 240 cm
On February 6, 2003, the then U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell presented the UN and the world with
so-called evidence of Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction. This became the basis for the
invasion of Iraq a little over a month later. In a strange and symbolic gesture, the U.S. government had
opted for hiding the large tapestry reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica that hangs in the vestibule of the
UN building in which the presentation took place. The horrors of this famous anti-war painting were
meant to remain un-associated with what was going on before its blindfolded eyes. But the more clear
it became that the invasion was based on a lie, the more that curtain became not only a symbol of the
veil of deception, but something that could be read as a gesture of acknowledgement of the power of
art and the relevance of Picasso’s message with his painting and stated hin his famous quote: ”Il faut
créer des images inacceptables.” The presence of the curtain only made the picture’s critical eyes more
piercing. In the work Picasso Retrospektive Kundus (2011), the curtain hides a painted copy of the Guernica
with slight modifications, showing the bull with the features of former Minister of foreign affairs, CarlTheodor zu Guttenberg, and the frightened looking person shining a light on the scene looking slightly
like Chancellor Angela Merkel. The painting, while retaining its original depictions of the bombing by the
Germans on April 26, 1937 of the small Basque village, brings another level to this reference to German
wars of aggression by linking it simultaneously to the country’s participation in the war in Afghanistan
and especially the killing of civilians in Kundus. The artist, who refers to himself as a pacifist, sees in the
bombing of Kundus not only history repeating itself, but also an unresolved conflict with the German
constitution.
With the quotes hanging next to the painting, Castro refers to a scandalous interview with the former
Federal President of Germany, Horst Köhler, who stated the need for the country to defend its economic
interests on an international scale – if necessary also with military means. The word “Retrospektive”
written on the painting thus becomes an ambivalent memento of German warfare, disguised as a joke.
Die Erneuerung des Kniefalls von Warschau
Super 8, transferred to video, 2 min, 2010
The work Die Erneuerung des Kniefalls von Warschau (2010) uses a similar strategy of actualising a historical
event with many and complex political meanings for the German state. In the short clip, Castro re-enacts
the so-called “Kniefall von Warschau” (the Warsaw Genuflection) of the then German Chancellor Willy
Brandt on December 7, 1970. On the day when Germany and Poland signed the Treaty of Warsaw, which
guaranteed the borders of Poland, he visited the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto. As he kneeled in front
of it, he was the first German Chancellor to publicly show regret for the attack on Poland.
The film was shot in Warsaw on Super-8 film in October 2010, in the context of the first German war of
aggression since 1945 and in the midst of the scandal around the politician and member of the Bund
der Vertriebenen (Federation of Expelees), Erika Steinbach, who had claimed that the German attack on
Poland in 1939 was only an answer to Polish mobilisation.
The performance-reenactment thus, on the one hand, acts out a frustration with the failure of learning
from history, and on the other, it puts into perspective the question of Germany’s territorial politics.
(left: “Blondi”, pencil on paper, A2, 2010)
Republik der Gespenster
collage-film, 16min. video, 2010
The collage film Republik der Gespenster (2009) deals with the persisting ghosts of authoritarian character
in the German mind. Through montage, it links clips from the film Der Untertan by Wolfgang Staude that
show the authoritarian chatacter of the fraternities in the Wilhelminian era with images from Germany,
Year Zero by Roberto Rossellini. The latter shows the tragic story of a German boy, who, immediately
after the war, experiences the aporia of the sudden disappearance of the ideals he was brought up with
during the Third Reich. His fate is symbolic of a whole generation, brought up with authoritarianism
and indoctrinated with absolute obedience. The images of the boy’s suicide in the rubble of Berlin are
again juxtaposed with a clip of Rudi Dutschke responding to verbal assaults on his person before the
attempted assassination of him on April 11, 1968. The subtitles show quotes from a letter Dutschke wrote
while recovering from the assault to the offender Josef Bachmann, a Neo-Nazi, who had shot him three
times in the head. Bachmann, like the boy in Rossellini’s film, later committed suicide. The result of the
montage is a strong comment on the structural persistence of the psychology of National Socialism and
its disasters, even long after the war was over.
The exhibition shows an attempt at and a belief in the possibility of creating a political critique through
images. Castro draws on both hegemonic and counter-images in works which exploit the many levels
and contextual meanings that images always have, and the possibility of refracting and détourning their
associations. His strategy works through a collision of images from different contexts that creates a
dialectical moment in which a new thought can occur. Adding sarcasm, anger and the cartoon’s tactic of
twisting images and words, he tries to overcome the stereotypical German post-war culture of contrition.
By drawing historical images into a contemporary context, not only the tragedy of history’s repetition is
made visible. Also the images’ potentials for the present time are activated. Thus, in the reenactment of
Brandt’s kneeling, a wider meaning present in Brandt’s gesture, its place in the long history of German
territorial interests, which did not end with that event, is pointed to. And this is underlined through the
contextualisation with the other works in the exhibition.
Castro uses these strategies to draw connections between the historical and political events and the ideas
of which they are expressions. The show’s title refers to a recurring image of German restoration:
Heidelberg, the romantic university town, which in popular culture has become symbolic of a construction
of precious, positively connoted nationalism. In songs, or in Christian Kracht’s notorious novel Faserland,
it appeals to an amnesic image of Germany, obscuring the blatant nationalism present in Heidelberg’s
long tradition of fraternities. It is all put into perspective by the drawing of the singer Nicole, who,
according to the magazine Stern, stood for the only victory (before Lena Meyer-Landrut) of Germany in
the twentieth century with her Eurovision song Ein bißchen Frieden.
top: exhibition view, left: projection of “Die Erneuerung des Kniefalls”,
middle; “Beim besten Willen”, arrangement of 6 drawings,
right: projection of “Republik der Gespenster”
Beim Besten Willen
Pages 10 - 16:
10 “Beim besten Willen, Heidelberg” shows a copy of an old view on the “Burg” in the old city of
Heidelberg. The clouds in tzhe sky subtly form a swastika. The title -like the arrangement of the drawings- refers to Martin Kippenberger’s infamous painting: “Ich kann beim besten Willen kein Hakenkreuz
erkennen (By no strech of the imagination I can detect a swastika)”
11 “Paranoia” shows a copy of a drawing made by Picasso for Stalin’s birthday, published in 1953 in a
communist newspaper. It draws on the main principle of survival strategy in Stalin’s Russia: Paranoia,
but also showed a great momentum of failure of western recuperation of Picasso, who never distanciated
himself from his communist affiliation. Why should he? He was a communist, of course. The reaction in
the western world to Picasso’s praise of Stalin, mirrored the inquisitorial paranoia of the USSR into the
western culture. Even in 2008, Lene Bergs reproduction of the drawing on the outside of Cooper Union
was taken down by CU’s administration in anticipatory obedience, as CU was afraid of not being PC or
having to face law suits. The two Picasso references connect with the Guernica reproduction behind the
curtain, making an allusion to Germany’s dirty little secrets. A brew of warfare, economic neo-imperialism and a nationalism masked with humanitariarist political correctness. In the society of control the
rulers seem to have yet on fear of not looking politically correct.
12 “Deutschland’s einziger Sieg”, Germany sole victory, shows 17-year-old European Song Contest
winner Nicole, who conquered the world in 1982 with “Ein bisschen Frieden” ( A little peace). Speaks for
itself...
13 “Generation Vollwichs”, shows two fraternity students, from a fencing corporation in full gala gear
(meaning “Vollwichs”, which equally sounds like “total wanker” in German). Heidelberg is a home to lots
of fraternities, some of them duelling. The fraternities have been in the past, and still are, incubators for
conservative, nationalist, militaristic and even fascist tendencies, that have risen up to the highest strats
of society and still do so today. The student’s strong bonds persist until long after the studies and create obscure affiliations in the leading class. Heinrich Mann has analysed this mentality in his novel “Der
Untertan” (The loyal subject), whis is also being quoted in the present video “Republik der Gespenster”.
Today these fraternities remain the home for a desquiting Generation X of the reactionnaire.
14 “Solo los paranoicos sobreviven” (Only the paranoid will survive), from an image of Picasso speaking in front of the congress of the comunist internationale in Warsaw, sometime during the cold war,
closing the circle of multiple connections between Picasso, the cold war (Warsaw) and german warfare.
15 “Memories of Heidelberg”, amercian singer Gus Backus’s version of the homonymous successful
post-war Schlager, drawing -like it’s famous precursor “Ich hab mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren” (I have
lost my heart in Heidelberg)- on the combination of patriotism and sentimental feeling over a lost love.
Sung in German by an american GI.