The jury of the Poetry Prize chose Maxi Obexer's "von den dächern"! The poem by the writer and winner of the Alice Salomon Poetry Prize 2023 will replace Barbara Köhler's current work on the south façade of ASH Berlin in a few months' time.
In its statement, the jury said: "We consider it [Obexer's design] to be a successful intervention in public space that offers opportunities for communication and interaction."
There is a lot of talk about the poems on this wall. It is part of the recent history of the university on Alice-Salomon-Platz. On this June 20, 2024, the day of the announcement, it shines through many of the sentences spoken, almost as much as Gomringer's "avenidas" shines through the work of the wonderful Barbara Köhler, which is currently still on the wall. The day is dedicated to her almost as much as to her soon-to-be successor Obexer.
The event introduces a rare special feature in that she, as the creator, performs her "von den dächern". As the few lines of precisely placed words and emphases last only a moment, an interesting, almost anachronistic intensity is created in the context of this long afternoon dedicated to the event of the announcement and the change that soon followed, and the time span of several years granted to the work as a presence on the wall.
But back to Maxi Obexer and "von den dächern". Just a few moments earlier, she had stepped forward, away from the standing desk, down from the podium of the Audimax, where the panelists of the round table were still sitting to the side of her. She had just sat there as part of the panel moderated by poet Tom Bresemann, co-founder of Lettrétage and member of the Poetry Prize jury, with Jörg van den Berg, Director of Museum Morsbroich, ASH Rector Bettina Völter and ASH Professor Jutta Hartmann.
Now she stands, in the sunlight streaming in from outside through the high windows (see picture gallery above), between the podium and the audience, but also between a façade outside, which will soon be showing her "von den dächern", but just the work of her predecessor Barbara Köhler, who is not only appreciated by her... and the lines she is about to make public by reading.
In all these in-between moments, she performs - and thus moves to the center of it all:
sie alle hier, wir
können es sein, bedroht
betroffen, berufen, sogleich
zu anderen werden
allein, wie sich finden
und nicht vergessen
dass wir liebende sindwo ist das außen, wenn wir es suchen
wer ist das außen, wenn wir es lieben
This is how Obexer's poem sounds from her mouth, carried by her voice; soon it will work silently from the façade and trigger something similar or completely different in the minds of the readers, as it did this afternoon with her listeners. This highlight of the eventful day passed in the blink of an eye, and perhaps to hold on to it a little longer, the author reads her "von den dächern" a second time, pondering thoughtfully, as if she herself had just discovered a new interpretation or reading of her own lines. Completely at peace with herself, she scratches her chin briefly and changes her perspective. Whereas everyone was watching the artist a moment ago, now it is she who is observing her audience. Before she sets off with everyone present towards the future home of her work, she says as if in greeting: "Now it's in the room, now I'm stepping back, now it has to walk and stand on its own."
Passing the first summer festival revellers, the group reaches the "Center of the Periphery", which the Transferale festival has chosen Alice Salomon Square to be on this day, and the south façade of Alice Salomon University, where the group cannot yet admire the new poem. It will not be installed there until the fall. However, they can toast the second 1x1.4 meter stainless steel plaque below the main building, which has just been unveiled. Barbara Köhler's poem now finds its place on this next to the plaque of Gomringer's "avenidas". With the relocation of Köhler's lines to a good neighborhood with her predecessor and successor, this procedure is established , which does justice to all of the university's Poetry Prize winners.
In order to understand how this came about and why it is worth talking about it, we need to look back in different ways.
First, just over two hours back to the start of the public event "A public text: How do we design the south façade of the university?", which provided the framework for the formal announcement and thus Obexer's lecture.
And this framework includes a space that clearly belongs to both poets: Obexer and her predecessor, the much-admired Barbara Köhler. Student Silke Meyer opened the event with an intense dance performance to the poem "Walzer Solo" by the 2017 prizewinner (see gallery above), before the aforementioned round table was formed and dedicated itself first to Barbara Köhler, who is not only the winner of the Poetry Prize, but was also a decisive figure in shaping the process, a celebrated artist and, last but not least, a truly special person.
Köhler followed in 2018 with her lines on "avenidas" by Eugen Gomringer. A change that led to a rather overheated discussion about art in public spaces at the time. Some - consciously or unconsciously - overshot the mark with their arguments and some found themselves in dead ends.
Certainly, a poem, i.e. a text in public space, generates publicity and thus, by its very existence, calls for interaction. Art in architecture wants to move people and stimulate discussions... and these in turn can always be viewed anew and differently in the light of the respective zeitgeist. Everything is in flux, comes, goes and passes.
The clever Barbara Köhler, who has sadly passed away in the meantime (here is Bettina Völter's obituary), not only gave ASH Berlin the gift of a poem written especially for the university and the place where it is located, she also gave her gift the bright and far-sighted stipulation that it must be replaced after five years at the latest. A cycle that was anything but randomly chosen, as it roughly corresponds to the average duration of study for students with a Master's degree, which means that each generation can help decide on the wall that surrounds them at the university - and at the same time, the time span allows the three most recently selected Poetry Prize winners to apply for this prominent place.
Bettina Völter, now Rector of ASH Berlin and already involved in the façade debate as Vice Rector in 2016/17, described Barbara Köhler's proposal in the round table discussion as "a bridge that works from in here to out there". After these words, she briefly looks around the plenary, gathers impressions and gazes, only to continue a moment later with a sentence that can certainly be understood as a condensation of the debate at the time: "Because we were concerned with identification."
After all, the lack of identification on the part of the students at the time was the trigger for rethinking not only the design, but also the procedure.
Moderator Tom Bresemann emphasizes that "it is always worth re-reading texts". Because "contexts change" and "you change yourself". He therefore formulates "a great plea", as he says, "to visit Barbara Köhler's work again and again".
Jörg van den Berg then shares memories of the exciting weeks in 2017 when Köhler often visited him. On that day, he not only visited ASH in Berlin Hellersdorf, but also her work - and the memories associated with it. Hours before the unveiling, he looked with great interest at the plaques that commemorate, document and contextualize the previous murals. On the podium, he paid the university "a compliment", saying he thought the process was "excellent for archiving art". He knows that "public space is not good for art", because there is "more writing", but only a little away from "advertising and its message". For him, this creates a field of tension that he describes "as a stage that we are entering", which is why he reminds everyone on the podium and in the Audimax audience in an almost combative manner:
"As I's, We have a responsibility for this space."
Another one of those sentences that were uttered by the illustrious panel that afternoon. A sentence that resonates and continues to resonate. The audience in the Audimax felt the solidarity of those on the podium, who listened to each other, in many moments of the afternoon. Handwritten quotes by May Ayim and Audre Lorde frame the scenario to the left and right above them. Both worked with text, both are appreciated and revered by some at ASH Berlin. The largest SAGE university in the country, it cultivates its sense of the written word. Inside and outside. It will always continue to think through words.
