| It is curious to see how the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the appearance of a series of socio-cultural, political and ideological phenomena that are defining the development of Western societies in a way that is problematic. |  |
Post-Communism + Globalization = Post-Capitalism? – Dennys Matos
It is curious to see how the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the appearance of a series of socio-cultural, political and ideological phenomena that are defining the development of Western societies in a way that is problematic. Its fall brought down the entire Socialist system and in the blink of an eye, maps and flags changed colour and millions of people woke up the next day belonging to another country, without taking a step outside their own home. The scrapping of the Wall was the beginning of the post-communist era which, in Eastern Europe, led to a swathe of incipient nation states, whose ideology has evolved towards a kind of neo-liberal reflexive cynicism, a combination of radical militancy (under whatever ideological sign), the practical frivolity of capitalism and a parricidal nostalgia for the old, paternalistic state.
These young nation states, as soon as they realize they are bereft of both a birth and a memory, delve deep into history in search of any kind of foundational sign that will make them the legitimate parents of their own history. The schisms brought about by this search were and still are the cause of the appalling European civil war in the Balkans.
The fall of the Berlin Wall made it possible for the tide of Western neo-capitalism to wash aside the Iron Curtain and once over the threshold, its face became the face of globalization. It is like an immense shop window, constantly brewing up placebos and complacency for cultural figures who are obsessed with seeing and being seen, wanting and being wanted, owning and being owned, controlling and being controlled. This causes them to exaggerate the most banal everyday experiences until they match the desire for eternity and banishing the sensation of death and extinction. Such feelings ensure that our senses remain comfortably numb.
The existence and development of globalization as we know it today, was impossible without the removal of the dreaded Iron Curtain. Globalization has given way to post-capitalism, which is like a severe transformation of the categories that formulate the Western political system. Their principles are overwhelmed to the point where they are unusable as a creative instrument for transforming reality and are reduced to mere critical tools. This is perhaps the underlying suspicion in Giorgio Agamben’s words at the end of Homo Sacer, when he says, "ever since the concentration camps, there has been no possible return to classical politics; in them, the city and the home have become indiscernible and the possibility of distinguishing between our biological body and our political body, between what is incommunicable and remains silent and what is communicable and can be expressed, has been stolen from us for ever." In other words, it is as if when excessive logic and rationality are applied to the system it becomes, instead of a reproduction of life, a quasi-legal biological order, completely politicized and computerized. This is the post-capitalist state seen as an animal, insofar as it is impossible to control its power with the laws that brought it into being and which developed it.
I know of no other city in which so many fragments of most recent contemporary history are to be seen conversing. I have been in other European capitals and none of them aroused in me as much interest and curiosity as Berlin. I suppose it was because, one way or another, they were, ultimately, all rather alike. I mean to say that I saw, more or less, the same kind of buildings; the typical city centre, full of World Players and invaded by hoards of tourists; more or less the same buses; usually, the same food, fast or slow, but the same. The pavements were similar, the flashing lights, the streets and even the many CCTV networks, they were all very much the same. Everywhere, there was the same obsession with cleanliness, advertising, cinema listings and TV programmes. If they had all been stitched together, they would have made a real palimpsest of globalization. They felt like a choir of ventriloquists, phagocytes saying the same thing. It is impossible to interact with something that does nothing to encourage conversation. With this idea in your head, you feel as if you are trying converse with an idiot.
In Berlin, however, I noticed many voices keen to converse and scanned their different faces out of sheer curiosity. From the Post-Communist city in the Eastern sector, through the formerly Capitalist centre of West Berlin, to what may be the face of the future Post-Capitalist megalopolis, in the Potsdamer Platz area. I saw many differences on the streets and in the neighbourhoods and I took it for granted from experience that, thanks to these differences, Berlin might be a capital city with a real ability to produce culture and not merely to recycle and digest the ready-made as do most European capitals, to a great extent. This is one of the ideas behind "BerlinTendenzen," which, from the curatorial and methodological point of view, has been devised to take the pulse of the city’s artistic output. It is a flash-photo of the three perceptible sections of the city’s art scene: the compact institutional section, the intense alternative or fringe, activity and the militant nature of subculture.
It is hard to showcase this work in an exhibition outside the city because, amongst other things, in many cases we are looking at practices whose sense and significance cannot be disassociated from the city aura of Berlin. Such is the case, for example, of alternative or sub-cultural expressions. We had to re-inscribe these statements so that they could be viewed in the practical surroundings of an exhibition. At the same time, we had to ensure their concepts remained consistent with the programme’s aim of showcasing the aesthetic and poetic features of the city’s current art scene. This is why "BerlinTendenzen" shifted from being a project on Berlin’s artistic trends, to also reflect upon the actual conditions in which art is produced in a city that is one of the culture-producing centres of the Post-Cold War era—precisely when Berlin’s terrible financial situation is seriously threatening the economic future of both the city and its inhabitants.
"BerlinTendenzen" brings together painting, installations and video art, with works by 16 artists of 11 different nationalities, all residing in the city. This is an approach that indicates a rich, complex and contradictory aesthetic itinerary, far removed from the compact boom of German post-figurative painting style of the Leipzig School or the Düsseldorf Academy’s version of post-objective photography and their respective off-shoots, currently the main and most highly prized German product in institutional art circles and on the art market. It also counteracts or is set against, the prevailing cliché of national art, which is defined by national trends, movements and styles that are essentially linked, either by tradition or contemporariness, to the kind of discourse that gives priority to all things national, with values associated to territory and descent. "BerlinTendenzen" therefore stands as a reflection upon the artistic output of a city that, having been the bastion of the most fervent nationalism of the 20th Century, now wishes, from inside a Post-Communist and globalized Berlin, to speak of the consequences of post-capitalism in an age of post-national art.
