Das Geld, die Liebe, der Tod, die Freiheit - was zählt am Ende?
Money, Love, Death, Freedom – What Counts in the End?
CR 132. Year 1999
Gerz did not add “Art in Public Buildings” to the Ministry, but elicited something that would not appear otherwise. Art consists in bringing out something that is not there anyway. History, money, death, a capital city, one’s lot in life and in one’s job – all that is there, but in a way, Jochen Gerz relieved the Ministry of Finance of something that was never administered and utilized in this building, something to which it can lay no claim and yet which belongs to it now: a small democratic piece of art, a hint of freedom and love.
Hermann Pfütze 2001
When the building was converted into the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Finance (1996-1999), the concept artist Jochen Gerz …, who is internationally renowned for his memorial projects against fascism and racism, was invited to produce an interactive video installation that addressed the theme of German history. … Gerz focuses on the quintessential questions of life, which are personally important to everyone, thereby bridging the gap between the building’s past and todays’s field of tasks.
Constanze von Marlin, Anna-Sophie Laug 2021
Categories
Keywords
Work in public space
Random-controlled laser projection of the question Das Geld, die Liebe, der Tod, die Freiheit – was zählt am Ende? (Money, Love, Death, Freedom – What Counts in the End?), 2 monitors mounted in stone posts, showing video recordings of 50 interviews, protective hoods and operating instructions
Location: Federal Ministry of Finance in Berlin
Employees of the Federal Ministry of Finance in Berlin are asked the question: Das Geld, die Liebe, der Tod, die Freiheit – was zählt am Ende? (Money, Love, Death, Freedom – What Counts in the End?) Passers-by on the street can call up the answers on two monitors by pressing a button. The monitors are mounted in the two stone posts of the outside fence along the sidewalk in front of the Federal Ministry of Finance building. Each time the button is activated, a laser projection is triggered showing the title question as a randomly controlled moving image on the buildings facades and the ground of the inner Court of Honor.
See the video (698) and the edition (854) of the same title.
Exhibitions of documentation
Platform München, 2021 - 2022 (Rathaushalle Rostock, Händelhaus Halle, Hochschule Bremen, Musiktheater Gelsenkirchen, Volkshochschule Hannover, Neuen Museum Nürnberg, Freiburg, Hannover, Magdeburg 2023) Museum der 1000 Orte.
Realisation
Bundesministerium der Finanzen, Berlin, 1999
Bibliography
I: Berlin 2001. Paris 2002, pp. 88-89. Berlin 2020, pp. 53, 133, 157-159. Berlin 2021, pp. 52, 133, 157-159
II: Meierhenrich 2000
V: Chibidziura, Von Marlin 2021
Documentation
Project booklet