Martina Wolf: Sturm auf Berlin

The Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Poklonnaya Gora, in Moscow is devoted to the memory of the victory of the Red Army over fascism in World War II. The gigantic building complex in the west of the Russian capital was inaugurated in 1995 during the Yeltsin era. The decision for the establishment of such a memorial was however, taken already by the Central Committee back in 1957. Even in Russia 2.0., this symbolic place represents the heart of post-communist official state policy, as the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany has shown.

The photographer and video artist Martina Wolf has been working for some time with the Russian present. Among others and with a grant from the Hessen Cultural Foundation she lived in Moscow and visited several other cities. Her current video work, /Sturm auf Berlin/ is based on one of the six battle dioramas, exhibited in the basement of the intensively visited Poklonnaya Gora. Combining paintings and real objects, the museum shows a fight scene with bombed-out houses and the burning Reichstag of the Soviet Army in Berlin. The historical reference is the final battle in Berlin, from April 16th to May 2nd 1945, of the occupation of the Reichstag building on April 30th by the Red Army, and the final surrender of the German forces on may 2nd , 1945 which ended the II World War.

Wolf's interest lies primarily on the level of observing and artistic structures. The video installation /Sturm auf Berlin/ consists of two separate works: Firstly the artist photographed the Moscow Berlin-diorama fully in several hundred shots, and mounted them in a digital large-format, ultimately being scanned like a cut-out which is showed in a painfully slow motion digital video. The second work was shot in November 2009 in the exhibition space: Martina Wolf 's still camera films the viewers in real time. This film is partly backed by sound, one listens to the speech of the woman who leads a group of young people through the exhibition.

Both films are similarly long, during which one sees oneself in the process of reflection, remembering and seeing. (Text by Karin Görner)

Martina Wolf
Sturm auf Berlin