Calendar

"I love, I love all people" - with these words, Erich Mielke, the then Minister for State Security, tried to justify the repression and actions of the Stasi to the People's Chamber of the GDR after the fall of the Wall. The sentence marks a historical moment in which political power attempts to rhetorically pass itself off as closeness and humanity. The video work analyses such gestures of solidarity as recurring performative patterns of political publicity.

Handshakes and hugs function as symbolic acts with which those in power stage community and attempt to stabilise their political power. The video installation Ich liebe doch alle Menschen follows such gestures from German reunification to the present day using found footage and translates them into the aesthetics of a video game.

(Text by Sven Bergelt and Juliane Jaschnow)