1989 - 2009. Berlin Wall
Artists for Freedom

Berlin, November 9, 1989. Freedom sprang up among concrete rubble. The whole of Europe observed the unbelieveable fall of the Berlin Wall, the suddenly obsolete symbol of a divided continent.

What would happen then? Nobody knew, and nobody cared.

It was a moment of shared emotions, like when a meditative Rostropovich played Bach’s first cello Suite in front of the Wall, on 11 November, a day of rejoicing. A day of freedom, freedom for art. Like the famous cellist, artists paid their tribute to freedom after the fall, using portions from the immaculate East side of the Wall. That was the ultimate subversion: the same stone which, the day before, separated men, became a symbol of renewed exchanges.

The fame of the artists, the plastic diversity and symbolic strength of the works made for a unique collection.

The artists’ responses were many: for some, the historical approach was dominant, they denounced a system which was all-powerful in the East, or they chose to emphasize the present moment, the major event which had just occurred. Others opened new perspectives or subverted the medium, thus suppressing all references to the Berlin Wall and its history. Freedom was complete.

Twenty years have elapsed. What is left?

The artists’ responses have become testimonies. They bear witness to the past and, sublimed by Art, they have acquired a universal, timeless value; furthermore, they appear as an injunction. Behind the works in this collection, Freedom emerges as a call to memory and responsibility: European memory, responsibility toward the future, a Europe to build, a Peace to guarantee. The fall of the Berlin Wall is pregnant with the hope to (re)discover a common European identity for countries that were separated for too long.

Let me thank very warmly those who shared in this human and artistic venture with enthusiasm and dedication, and who helped me to keep this collection whole. I also give specific thanks to the artists who, for two decades, have allowed me to keep this collection alive and to share it now with the French public for the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall.

« Those who cannot draw lessons from three thousand years only live from day to day » - Goethe

Sylvestre Verger