Hello everyone. We're here with a very special guest, Hans Haacke, as part of the Art of the MOOC Project. Hello Hans, thank you for being with us. We mostly wanted to talk about a project you did a few years ago called To The Population. As part of our online course, we are trying to understand and study different definitions of the public, of not just what publics mean, but also what public versus private means and so on. And in this project, you really focused on the distinction between the people and the population. Can you talk a little bit more about what took you to focus on that distinction? And what, how the project evolved in relation to this idea of people, population, and publics? >> Well, on the face of it, it's probably not so easy to understand for somebody who doesn't know German history. This is the project made for Berlin, for the Reichstag, which is the building in which the German Parliament has been meeting since the late 19th century. Until something happened in the '30's, it got burned down, and it's still up to grabs, who actually burned it down, and to move somewhere else. And it was only in 1993 or so in the 90s that the capital of Germany, the West German capital moved to Berlin after the reunification the East Germans had at Berlin as the capital right from the beginning. On the facade, [COUGH] late in the 19th century, the architect of the building, Wallot, proposed to have a dedication to the German people, Dem Deutschen Volke. Since at the time, there was an Emperor, and he was in fact in charge of everything, he did not want to have such a dedication on that building. Maybe because the people, Das Volk, maybe remembered what happened by Le Peuple in France, and he didn't want to promote them in Germany. [INAUDIBLE] So he was against this. And then during the First World War when things were not going too well for the Germans. One of his aides told him, Your Majesty, it probably would be good now to have this dedication,
on the Reichstag and he took that advice and agreed. And the letters were designed by [INAUDIBLE] German architect and designer, and they were cast by a foundry in Berlin owned by a Jewish family. And then, as we know, there was a Republic announced, actually from the balcony of the building, and things got very bad in the '30s And as we know, during the what is now called the Third Reich, when Hitler took over. People like the foundry owners and the others who were Jewish wound up in concentration camps and died. There was a war, and thousands of terrible things happened. [INAUDIBLE] the Volk, because Volk, all of a sudden, had taken on a very ethnic, but in a proper sense, racist, connotation. And this is what I hope to put into perspective, not by picking off the dedication itself, but to introduce the notion that everyone who happens to live in Germany, irrespective of their parents, were Germans in terms of blood, as Hitler defined it. Whether they are immigrants recent, or whatever their background is, whoever lives in Germany, is addressed, and this is a tribute to them and, in fact, it's a reminder, I hope, to the members of Parliament that they are responsible and have to think for everyone who happens to be [INAUDIBLE] >> So in a way, it's a whole discussion about citizenship. And who belongs to the nation, right? by blood you experience the foundations of what citizenship is. Something that I also think is quite interesting is how you take – there's
the Bertolt Brecht – He spoke of precisely this term, through the population in that moment of Nazi history. >> Yes. >> And so, there's also that reference. In addition, something that to me adds to the great complexity of the piece, is that you invited the very process through which laws and politics are made, and the agents who are active in that process. They ended up becoming participants, willing participants, but also, in some cases, unhappy participants. Of the process of creating this extraordinary garden. You spoke thus far about the facade and the sign. But inside, there was the text in the form of a garden. Can you say a little bit more about how that process evolved, how the Parliament engaged? They asked you, you were commissioned to make this work, but then once you proposed it, it went through several stages, right? Including a short controversy with some representatives who had some issues. Can you talk a little bit about that, because I think it's a very important and rich part of the project? >> Well, my proposal as I submitted it to the art committee of the Bundestag the art committee is composed of representatively by percentage, but members of the older departments in Parliament. My proposal was to have in the Northern opening [INAUDIBLE] the dedication to the population. They have der Bevölkerung instead of Dem Deutschen Volke. But remember, there is a qualification, Deutsch. >> Yeah. >> In other countries, it would not matter. You see somebody dedicated to the American people, nobody would think twice about it. >> Because of the ethnic history. >> Right, right. So I, in the same typeface, on the facade. I had the dedication to the population, that is to say, everyone who happens to live in the territory of Germany. And I invited all members of the Bundestag to bring 100 pounds of soil from their constituency [INAUDIBLE] and spread it around the letters, and thereby, in a symbolic way, say yes, we dedicate our soil from our constituency to this notion. I wish. >> Mm-hm. >> The art committee approved it with an overwhelming majority. There was only one dissenter. And then there were discussions, and the one dissenter, in effect, started a campaign against it. She was a member of the Christian Democratic Party, the Center Right party in Germany. And the press, the media was printed as well. [INAUDIBLE] got involved, and so, it became a national debate. Whether something that appears to be innocent, Dem Deutschen Volke, should be put into this kind of perspective. And because of the bylaws in the Bundestag, after some 158 members of Parliament demanded it, it had to be called an open debate of the entire Parliament had to be called and vote on project, even though the art committee had okayed it several times, as well. >> Do you know when the last time was in German history, or any other country's history that the entire floor was taken by debating a public art project? It's not very often that that happens. >> No, I don't, ah. I don't know, yeah, in a way you could say what happened during the cultural wars in the 70s, yeah. Actually, yeah, in the 80s. [INAUDIBLE] That's when [INAUDIBLE] became a public issue, and in effect, as the result of the NEA was cut down, it could no longer operate as it did before. >> Yeah. And is the garden still, because I remember when it was first produced there was a webcast where you could see images of this growing garden. Is that also- >> [CROSSTALK] >> The webcast still part of it. But let me just refuse the word gardening. There is no gardening. I deliberately pointed out it's part of the proposal, as it was accepted that no clipping, no cleaning, no nothing is to be done. My assumption was that in the soil, naturally seeds and worms and all sorts of other stuff. And they were to be growing freely without any interference,
by anybody. >> A wild democracy. >> A wild- >> Vegetation. Or an English garden in Germany. [LAUGH] Well, the English also take care of their gardens. They pretend like they don't take care >> Well, in affect [INAUDIBLE] I never believed that it would
accept it. >> Mm-hm, mm-hm. >> I imagine that London, in that respect, would be the same as New York. If you wanted to do something like this under the auspices of the Mayor's office saying that. With Wall Street, and through a particular lens. I, no matter who is the Mayor, I think we have had a chance to be approved and paid for by the Mayor's office, impossible [INAUDIBLE] culture, and I have to hand it to people in the UK. There was an independent jury, and they liked it, and they chose it, even though the jury was had been appointed by the mayor. >> Yeah.
