The New Europe

Figure 1.

Photo from the installation of The New Europe at Galleri Susanne Ottesen. Photo: Courtesy Galleri Susanne Ottesen.

Figure 2.

Photos from the installation of The New Europe at Galleri Susanne Ottesen. Photo: Courtesy Galleri Susanne Ottesen.

In 1992 I received an invitation from the Art Hall in Tallin, Estonia to do an exhibition consisting of an installation, an action, a documentary exhibition of photographs, and a lecture. The resulting piece, The new Europe—every morning we have to start over again, was shown in Copenhagen in 1994 at the Galleri Susanne Ottesen. The piece commemorated the central event of the early nineties, the fall of the Soviet Empire. As a European I traveled in the Eastern bloc countries during the years of Soviet hegemony. Since 1986 my wife and I have had a studio in Berlin and watched the dissolution process from the first row. There was an almost euphoric reaction in the beginning, from 1989, though everybody East and West forgot that when you have no East you also logically have no West, that the loss of identity in the East means equally a loss of identity in our part of the world. From the one big problem of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet threat we now have thousands of smaller problems in an increasingly chaotic political situation.

On the personal level, it seems that when people get their freedom most of them (also in our part of the world) immediately tend to seek out another rule, another religious system, an old nationalistic identity, another king or god, and to run away from freedom and personal responsibility. They avoid the trouble it takes to make one’s own choices, and also avoid the loneliness that is partner to all freedom. The other tragic consequence of this situation is that the people who presently seek power are too often the same people who were in power—they just changed their suit from communism to nationalism, no problem, from one mass seduction to another.

Everybody wants to have fun; nobody wants to do the hard work. The majority in the East thought it was more fun in the West, and when things didn’t change overnight, many became disappointed. They longed for the “good old days” during communism instead of facing the new realities. Freedom and democracy turned out to be not just fun, but difficult, confusing, and a lot of trouble.

I don’t believe in postmodernism. It may be a way to describe the common chaotic situation, but when somebody tries to make it into a philosophical system or even an ideology it becomes harmful and dangerous. We need images, pictures, stories, myths, history, visions, dreams, hope, love and hate, right and wrong to be human beings.

The main ideas of this installation are expressed in its title: The new Europe—every morning we have to start over again. The first part, “The new Europe,” refers to the fact that we no longer have an overarching paradigm of East-West, Soviet versus American, which previously gave us the frame wherein we could judge all other events and understand their consequences. We need a new image, a new frame, to understand all those chaotic events which have appeared around us in the last five to six years. We don’t want another empire. The new frame cannot be a constant one, but one we can describe as a process, a dialogue which keeps pace with all the events and problems that emerge. We need to change or build new kinds of institutions and develop a new “language” between nations.

The other half of the title, “every morning we have to start over again,” refers to our individual responsibility in this never-ending process. Neither God nor the General Secretary of the Communist Party nor the President of the U.S.A. shall solve our earthly problems. We should do it ourselves in an ongoing process, like life...