Cadavre exquis (Wrapping Paper)

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Since the fall of the wall in 1989 a dogma of so called ÔBerlinish ArchitectureÕ and ÔPrussian styleÕ domiantes the architectural discourse in Berlin. Investors are asked to generate with their constructions an image of a traditional european city, while appart from this, they have big freedoms. Hans Stimmann, who was the Senate building director and is now an under-secretary says: "IÕm for the investors. I try to keep them in check with aesthetic categories." In terms of architecture this means packaging the contemporary speculative office building in historicising facades.

The wrapping paper thematize the topic of the Ôdecorated shedÕ of the ÔNew Berlinish ArchitectureÕ in a critical and playfull way. Ten facades by architects Hans Kollhoff, Josef Paul Kleihues, Jürgen Sawade, Philip Johnson, Klaus The Brenner, Christoph Mäckler and others have been collaged according to the principal pf the surrealistic ÔCadavre exquisÕ. In the same way, as the pseudo-historian facades of the ÔNew Berlinish architectureÕ clad the products of the real estate market, any object can be wrapped with/by the gift-paper.

The wrapping-paper has been designed for the catalogue and the exhibition of the berlin biennale and was there on show, as well as at the exhbition ÔChildren of BerlinÕ at the P.S.1 in New York 1999.