Artists At Work: The New Berlin November 9, 2010

A Presentation by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock

Co-sponsored by the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, UCLA Department of Germanic Languages, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, and Villa Aurora

After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 the German parliament in Bonn voted for Berlin as the new capital for East and West Germany (1991). The interwoven layers of past and present have turned Berlin into a vast case study on how to deal with memory and history in a democratic society. In their lecture, Stih & Schnock will present "The New Berlin" concentrating on memorials and the interaction of politicians, historians, the media, architects, artists and the informed public.
Special attention will be paid to the way in which Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany deal with the ongoing impact of the Nazi past.

Renata Stih & Frieder Schnock are conceptual artists who explore how
memory functions in the social sphere and how it is reflected symbolically in urban spaces.

Stih has taught art and technology as well as film and media at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin for
many years.

Schnock received his PhD in art history and is a former curator at the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel. He also teaches visual studies to film students. Together they have lectured at numerous American colleges and universities, including Princeton, Oberlin, SAIC/UC, Emory, Harvard and Brown. They live and work in Berlin.

www.stih-schnock.de