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Kritische Rekonstruktion
Karsten Konrad





Since the 1990s, the sculptural works of Berlin-based artist Karsten Konrad (*1962) have traced a typical Berlin balance between model- and object-like quality - a balance that is part of Berlin's architectural debates oscillating between visions and (dis)illusions. In this sense, Konrad's sculptural, architecture-related works always carry with them the planning suggestion that everything could be, could have been or could yet be completely different. With the exhibition “Critical Reconstruction”, which looks back artistically to the Berlin period since the 1990s, the sculptor, who teaches as a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts and has already been represented in several thematic group exhibitions at “B-Part Exhibition”, now has his first solo exhibition at Gleisdreieck. In addition to two of Konrad's architectural models presented on plinths, the exhibition also features wall works and some of his reliefs referencing architecture-related art.



Berlin is a city in which architectural and urban planning models have been on public display everywhere since the early 1990s: be it for the plans for Potsdamer Platz, Alexanderplatz or the reconstruction of the Berlin City Palace. In fact, there were exhibitions in Berlin in the 1990s and 2000s that showed nothing other than models - exhibitions that attracted an enormous number of visitors and were able to transform the aesthetic, architectural and urban planning debate about the redesign of inner city areas into a socially relevant one. Against this backdrop, the publicly displayed architectural model had far-reaching significance: as part of a discourse, the model itself became a political and aesthetic object, demonstrating, far beyond a possibility, the concrete desire for a place in the collective memory. Many of Konrad's works since this time, especially his architectural models, take up this desire, but change it subtly. This shows that the concept of “critical reconstruction” is now itself in need of critical reconstruction.



The “critical reconstruction” - the idea of restoring the figure of an earlier building block in perimeter block development, in contrast to concepts of architectural modernism - was by no means just an urban planning idea as a principle for reunified Berlin. Above all, it was also an ideologically based, ultimately enforced variant for the densification of the coalescing city: in the Berlin of the 1990s and 2000s, new planning in the sense of “critical reconstruction” went hand in hand with political and investor interests. Some of the most prominent examples of GDR architecture with modernist connotations fell victim to this mixture of interests through demolition - such as the Ahornblatt, the former GDR Foreign Ministry or the Palace of the Republic.



Karsten Konrad, who comes from West Germany, reacted to these debates with his artistic means during and immediately after these debates: His work “Lost Island” (2010) made of Formica, plaster, Plexiglas, plastic and Kappa, for example, refers to the iconic roof construction of the Ahornblatt on Fischerinsel, which was designed by Ulrich Müther and built in 1973 as a large restaurant. Despite its listed status, the building was demolished in the year 2000 - a prominent example of the loss of modern Eastern architectural heritage.



In contrast to the maple leaf itself, Konrad's sculpture of the maple leaf presents itself as a closed volume - without entrances or passageways. Its entire expression is concentrated on the structure with the striking, double-curved roof shape that Müther developed.



Konrad took a very similar approach with his model of the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the GDR”, or GDR Foreign Ministry for short. At first glance, Konrad's model “(D)DRaussen” (2010) made of Formica, plaster, Plexiglas and aluminum appears to be a faithful reproduction of the building designed by Josef Kaiser, Heinz Aust, Gerhard Lehmann and Lothar Kwasnitza and erected between 1964 and 1967 on the former Schinkelplatz on Friedrichswerder. The fact that the building demolished in 1995/96 was actually more than twice as long, i.e. that Konrad shortened it with his model, is now, after a long time, once again on display in an exhibition - at “B-Part Exhibition” - and is now almost only known to those who still know the original from their own experience. In this sense, Konrad already praised the dwindling collective memory in his work 15 years ago and thus anticipated the necessity of a critical reconstruction of the Critical Reconstruction that is emerging in the present with his two models shown here. They are a retrospective reminder of the originals, while at the same time being deliberately bad, so to speak. The title of the exhibition, “Critical Reconstruction”, also alludes to the anticipated possibility of a critical revision of the artistic and urbanistic approaches developed in Berlin in the years around 2000 - by protagonists from the former West and the former East.



In a spatial and thematic dialogue with the two models and framing them, the walls of the “B-Part Exhibition” feature reliefs by Konrad that are sometimes expressive in color, sometimes reduced. In their own way, these works of different formats are reminiscent of motifs from concrete and ornamental, architecture-related art. Although they do not have a genuinely eastern-modern connotation, but are part of the “formalist” East-West cultural heritage, they build a bridge from the models on display to the many works of architecture-related art in the GDR and East Berlin that were lost through demolition or conversion. When, for example, a rediscovered wall ceramic made of 365 colorful ceramic tiles is being restored in Cottbus, which was attached to a school in GDR times and then stowed away in boxes in the city museum for years, this also shows that the interest in such abstract formal languages can and must be placed in the context of a larger history of dwindling modern design. In his works over the decades, Konrad has repeatedly brought their free artistic interpretation into the present. In keeping with his general sculptural language, the reliefs are composed of found and then cut materials, which both emphasizes and determines the character of the works, reminiscent of mosaics and inlays. The “alchemistic” aspect of Konrad's works - giving new value to found objects in the sense of an expanded concept of recycling - also expands the concept of “critical reconstruction” by at least one nuance that is as seminal as it is unmistakable.



­The B-Part Exhibition space accompanies the future development of the Urbane Mitte Am Gleisdreieck with artistic autonomy and thus at the same time enters into a dialogue with the overarching themes of the overall project - forms of New Work, Co-working, Culture and Sport - and creates synergies between artistic, cultural and social approaches. The artistic director of the B-Part Exhibition is Rüdiger Lange (loop - raum für aktuelle kunst).