The population

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The population
Hans Haacke
Concept art

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

The work of art The Population by Hans Haacke was erected in 2000 in the northern atrium of the Reichstag building by resolution of the Bundestag . It consists of a 21 × 7 m trough framed by wooden planks, filled with gravel and earth, from which various plants sprout and from the middle of which the writing "DER BEVÖLKERUNG" shines upwards in white neon light letters. They can be read from all floors of the building: from the plenary hall, from the press and parliamentary group level as well as by visitors on the roof. The public funding for this was the equivalent of around € 200,000. The work of art was realized as part of “ Art in Architecture ”.

The work of art refers to the dedication on the Reichstag and is executed in the same font

The work refers to the lettering “ DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE ” on the Reichstag, which is underlined in particular by the choice of the same font designed by Peter Behrens . The artist emphasizes the difference in meaning between people and population : the term population includes all people who live in a country. Hans Haacke was inspired by a sentence by Bertolt Brecht for his campaign :

"Anyone who says people [...] instead of people in our time does not support many lies."

Members of the German Bundestag are invited to bring earth from their constituency to the work. The plants grow from seeds that have happened to land or are contained in the earth's contributions. The biotope, which grows freely over time, should remain untouched. In another work conceived in 2017 for Documenta 14, Hans Haacke takes up the terminology and the debates connected with it: We (all) are the people.

Since then, each site-specific work has been shown internationally in the form of flags and banners.

Controversy

Members of the German Bundestag before the vote

Due to the political position of the work of art, there was initially a political controversy about its construction. Volker Kauder , member of the Bundestag Art Advisory Council , was the only member of this committee to oppose the work of art:

“I say no to this simple and for our house unworthy work of art. I say no to the attempt being made to make the German people contemptible, to reduce it to a short time in its history. I say no to the attempt to distance the German Bundestag from its own people. "

In the Bundestag, members of the CDU in particular, such as Norbert Lammert , but also the then Bundestag Vice- President Antje Vollmer from the Greens initially objected to buying the work. According to Lammert, it is a “bizarre federal horticultural show” and a “silliness”. If MPs were to participate practically, they should be able to discuss it too.

Gert Weisskirchen ( SPD ) campaigned for the work of art :

“Here the dedications 'Dem Deutschen Volke' and 'Der Population' are not juxtaposed as enemy terms, but both terms are placed against each other in order to conduct a dialogue with one another about the question: In which society do we want to live in the future? The artist wants to tell us that. "

For the FDP politician Ulrich Heinrich , Haacke's work of art symbolizes the transition from ius sanguinis to ius soli .

Haacke's work poses questions of a highly political nature, according to the then President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Thierse, one of the main proponents of the project:

"They aim at the ethos of parliamentarians, asking which norms they are committed to and what responsibility they see themselves as being made towards people who live in our country."

It is crucial that the viewer takes a stand and has dealt mentally with Haacke's projects.

A cross-factional group motion against the creation of the work of art was finally rejected with 260 against 258 votes.

Up to the current legislative period (June 2020) around 400 MPs from all parliamentary groups with soil from their constituencies have participated.

Comments from the ranks of the media and society

The FAZ accused Haacke in a comment that he wanted to "take away" the Bundestag from the German people and that the work was unconstitutional, a judgment that was also reached by a legal opinion commissioned by the CDU.

That every member of parliament should pour a bag of earth from his constituency in a Erdtrog, rated aesthetes under Haacke's critics "as a church during exemplary community kitsch ritual", other critics "as problematic throwback to NS - ground rituals ".

The Federal Association of Visual Artists criticized the fact that it was not the Bundestag's Art Advisory Board, but the German Bundestag itself that had to make the decision about the layout of the work of art, as individual members of parliament had tried “to express their personal taste judgments with regard to the artwork by Hans Haacke in particular to make a majority by means of plenary votes and thereby deal with an incompetent body, namely the plenum of the German Bundestag, with decisions on the quality of works of art. "

Copyright to the artwork

The work of art attracted surprising attention on the Internet again later when the artist had a photo of the installation forbidden from being shown on a private website. Via the collecting society VG Bild-Kunst , he prohibited the owner of the blog from using it for the photographic representation of his work of art on the Internet. While the artist is legally in the right due to German copyright law (a general right to public presentation of photos of works of art only exists if these works of art are in public space; the interior of the Reichstag building is not considered public space), comments are repeatedly raised the contradiction to the content of the lettering.

literature

  • Michael Diers , Kaspar König (ed.): "The population". Essays and documents on the debate about the Reichstag project by Hans Haacke. König, Cologne 2000.
  • Heidrun Alzheimer: Fetish - Relic - Memory. Thoughts on symbolic use of the earth. In: Anja Schöne, Helmut Groschwitz (Ed.): Religiosity and Spirituality: Questions, Competencies, Results. Waxmann, Münster, New York 2014, pp. 67–89, here pp. 67 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ bundestag.de
  2. ↑ Bertolt Brecht : Five difficulties in writing the truth . 1935
  3. ↑ Sarah Alberti: We (all) are the people - Hans Haackes contribution to documenta 14, in: kunsttexte.de - E-Journal for art and visual history, present, 4.2017 [1]
  4. ↑ u. a. 2019 at the Central Institute for Art History, Art Nature Politics: Now, curated by Ursula Ströbele [2]
  5. ^ Christian Bauschke: The German population . In: Die Welt , December 7, 1999
  6. ↑ 97th session. April 5, 2000. (PDF) German Bundestag, 14th electoral term, p. 9035
  7. ↑ 97th session. April 5, 2000. (PDF) German Bundestag, 14th electoral term, p. 9036
  8. ↑ 97th session. April 5, 2000. (PDF) German Bundestag, 14th electoral term, p. 9041
  9. ↑ Michael Diers, Kaspar König (ed.): "The population". Essays and documents on the debate about the Reichstag project by Hans Haacke. König, Cologne 2000, p. 20
  10. ↑ Vanessa Müller: Provocative drives. Bundestag has to decide on flowerbed artwork . In: Spiegel Online , February 25, 2000
  11. ↑ Official homepage of the work of art with webcam images [3]
  12. ^ Jörg Lau: German topsoil . In: Die Zeit , No. 9/2000
  13. ↑ Niklas Maak: Art critical? In: FAZ , 22. December 2006
  14. ↑ bbk-bundesverband.de ( Memento of the original from April 15, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Press release of the Federal Association of Visual Artists, March 12, 2000 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bbk-bundesverband.de
  15. ↑ Petra Tursky Hartmann: population belongs collecting society. In: tursky.blogspot.de. November 13, 2006, accessed December 17, 2015 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '8 "  N , 13 ° 22' 34"  E