I spontaneoulsly appealed my collobaration for one single reason: Curiosity.
There are two Berlin guys, grabbing more than 150 paintings without any deeper knowledge of fine art and start to prepare an exhibition. Just like that. In Berlin. At Spandauer Strasse. Rigth in the middle of the city.
We came together for the first time at the 15th of August in 2008 at the OSTEL near the east trainstation in Berlin. After this, things developed in rapid succession.
The opening of the exhibition should be at the end of september, but before 2.200 qm had to be renovated completley: old carpet out, grinding the floors, whitening the walls, cleaning the windows, preparing toiletts and offices, designing an entrance and certainly the exhibition itself had to be set up.
I saw the first drafts and shuddered. That ´s great! I gonna be the curator of an exhibition whose paintings i don´t know yet, actually don´t have enough time, but already have to two aging retro-designed Secretary-Generals on my back.
At the beginning of 2008 Daniel Helbig and Guido Sand from the OSTEL in Berlin contacted the Art Archive Beeskow for the first time to borrow some artworks.
Because I was actually preparing an
exhibition for the archiv, i heard about it and cried out, disgusted: „What? For a Hotel? Why don´t they take some Van Gogh reproductions, that were often hanging in living-rooms of the former GDR“.
After that, it seemingly went on with some mails and phonecalls back and forth, until finally it cleared up: It´s not for the OSTEL, it´s for an own exhibition. And when Daniel Helbig finally called me in person, the rental contract was already signed and the art cargo already on it´s way to Berlin.
Art Archiv Beeskow
Even so I did not make a turnaround - for one other reason: enthusiasm.
There are two work experienced young eastgermans having an idea. They wanna show artwork from the former GDR, which disappeared from public buildings, short after 1989, to be locked in archives and with it totally disappeared out of the field of vision of the own retrospection and art historiography.
They feel confident that the interest in this art is unbroken – possibly increased.
Dr. Simone Tippach-Schneider, Berlin
