The Berlin Wall did not literally fall down. Rather, it was opened by people and dismantled piece by piece. In the 1990s, however, people mostly spoke of the ‘fall’ of the Wall rather than of its ‘opening’. The more dramatic and emotional term probably struck a deeper chord at the time.

For Jannis Kounellis, who in the 1990s worked regularly in Berlin and Düsseldorf, the ‘fall of the Wall’ was the key event of the post-war period. In his opinion, the division of Europe had politically paralysed people in both East and West. He devoted himself to the question of how the arts could contribute to overcoming this division and paralysis. The sculpture shown here, too, seems to formulate this question. It consists of two steel beams and two pairs of shoes. The everyday objects mounted on the wall form a horizontal line, calling to mind an East-West axis or a timeline. The steel beams divide the wall and appear heavy and static. The shoes, by contrast, appear dynamic and establish a connection.