Inauguration 15.9.17  4pm
Between Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 43 and 41

Mytilus edulis (common or blue mussels) are intertidal molluscs, attached to rocks and other hard substrates by strong thread-like structures, and are adapted to live both underwater and outside in the open air. As well as being subject to intensive commercial use  they are important filter feeders, playing a vital role in estuaries by removing bacteria and toxins. As one of the public artistic interventions regularly commissioned by the Kunstverein on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz (L40), Awst & Walther have completely covered a false facade – constructed to disguise a gap between two buildings – with mussel shells.

The artist duo has been involved for a long time, and in many of its works, with architecture and objects in public space and their respective social and urban contexts. With their minimalist version of an originally mannerist decorative idea Awst & Walter mark an invisible gap in the centre of Berlin, thus referring to the square’s recent history, when ‘everything was still possible’, and to its future potential. Parallels between the ‘common mussel’, the animal’s less scientific English name, and the citizen as the ‘common man’ are coincidental but appropriate.

*Be Water I was made possible by the support of STEDI-Stiftung.

The public installation is part of a cooperation between the Georg Kolbe Museum and the Verein zur Förderung von Kunst und Kultur am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz e.V. (L40).

Awst & Walther: Be Water II at the Georg Kolbe Museum opens on 14.10.17 at 7pm. 21.10.17 Symposion Natur 4.0 from 2pm at the Georg Kolbe Museum. Holiday workshop at the Georg Kolbe Museum and L40 from 25. to 27.10.17.