The Neue Nationalgalerie is honored to present Christoph Schlingensief (1960-2010) – the highly influential German artist, author, filmmaker, theater and opera director as well as professor of fine arts – with a dedicated room in the current collection presentation Extreme Tension. Art between Politics and Society. The center of this presentation marks the work Deutschland versenken (Sinking Germany) from 1999, which was part of his project Deutschlandsuche ’99. Neue Nationalgalerie is delighted to announce that this work will stay in the collection as it is a generous donation from Aino Laberenz of the Christoph Schlingensief Estate.
In 1999, Christoph Schlingensief was invited by MoMA PS1 to come to New York City, where he carried out the action Deutschland versenken at the Statue of Liberty. The date of the action, 9 November 1999, was deliberately chosen, referencing significant historical events in Germany, such as the November Pogrom (1938) and the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989). Schlingensief staged a ritual performance, or in his words “action”, where he knelt before the statue, recalling former Chancellor Willy Brandt’s historic Warsaw kneeling.