GRAFT to Curate the German Pavilion at Next Year's Venice Biennale
John Hill
17. agosto 2017
Lars Krückeberg, Wolfram Putz, Marianne Birthler and Thomas Willemeit (Photo: GRAFT GmbH)
Lars Krückeberg, Wolfram Putz and Thomas Willemeit of Berlin's GRAFT together with German politician Marianne Birthler will curate the German Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale.
The announcement of the GRAFT/Birthler collaboration was made Wednesday by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB). The team was selected in an open competition based on their "UNBUILDING WALLS" submission. Although not explicit in their statement, GRAFT's words clearly refer to U.S. President Donald Trump and his promise to build a wall at the Mexican border: "The exhibition 'UNBUILDING WALLS' responds to current debates on nations, protectionism and division. As the world grows together, walls are increasingly being discussed and built that divide people from one another. Walls can denote division, power and exclusion, but also protection."
The exhibition by GRAFT and Birthler, who served as the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic, will coincide with the 28th anniversary of German reunification – an atypical anniversary but one that coincides with the number of years that the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) stood. GRAFT explains that the team will "take this parallel as an opportunity to explore the effects of division and the process of healing as a dynamic spatial phenomenon."
The announcement comes two months after Biennale curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects defined the main exhibition's theme, Freespace, which "celebrates architecture’s capacity to find additional and unexpected generosity in each project - even within the most private, defensive, exclusive or commercially restricted conditions," among other considerations. "UNBUILDING WALLS" responds to Freespace through a "special focus [that] will be given to outstanding examples of urban and architectural design that address aspects of division and integration," according to GRAFT.
The Venice Biennale of Architecture 2018 – the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – will take place in Venice's Giardini and Arsenale from 26 May to 25 November 2018.
