Broken Berlin Wall 2006
The Berlin Wall (1961-1989) was emblematic of impassable frontiers.
In the literal sense, if marked the chasm between the communist East and capitalist countries to the west.On a metaphorical level, however, it stood for impenetrable boundaries that appear beautiful on one side, yet hide a dark interior. Because the western side of the wall was open and available to passers-by, tourists and even artists, the surface facing West Berlin became encrusted with beautiful, vibrant imagery whose simple existence extolled the virtue of freedom of expression. On the eastern side of the wall, however, a far darker reality unfolded: sitting across a concrete no-man’s land, guarded by barbed wire and machine-gun toting police, the wall represented an insurmountable obstacle and, for some foolish dreamers, a graveyard, as they were shot down attempting the impossible.
When I visited Berlin for the first time in 1983, the wall stood brazen and unassailable. I walked along its western edge, noting the beauty of its surface and, at one, point, climbed an abandoned guard tower on the free side of Berlin. There, looking into the drab world across the wide concrete expanse on the other side, the stark absurdity and centrality of walls to our lives became clear. Each of us carries within us a Berlin Wall of fears, unspoken and often unconscious. The Berlin Wall itself merely stood as a metaphor to this shared human condition.
This painting honors how walls are built and then crumble. The Berlin Wall rose and fell, while walls in Cyprus, Israel, the southwestern United States, Korea and other locales continue to be built, or simply exist. Metaphor for the manner in which we attempt to wall ourselves off from our own fears, this painting honors the disappearance of the historic wall, while noting that walls still play such a vital role to us, not only in our political world, but also in our interior experience. The walls without, after all, only echo our personal attempts to manage our own fears in this world we have been thrust into, with barely enough consciousness to understand that we can never truly understand.
The painting is comprised of 24 6’ x 3’ panels (72-feet long in total), acrylic, ink and collage on canvas. It was painted in a fever dream over the coarse of a single month, while at a residency at Cooper Union, in New York City. Price available upon request.
