Twenty years after its fall, the symbolic weight of the Berlin Wall continues to accompany us as an historical monument to war, politics and painful cultural divisions. In Images of the Berlin Wall Ryerson University remounts the dynamic and moving story of the Wall through a selection of iconic photojournalistic prints from its renowned Black Star Collection. These black and white documents of history are juxtaposed with the contemporary art project, Freedom Rocks by Toronto artists Blake Fitzpatrick and Vid Ingelevics. Their photographs and videos reveal the transformed material existence of the Wall in the slabs and fragments that are today scattered throughout the world.

The 220 historical images in the exhibition stem from the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University, which boasts a total of 291,049. vintage photojournalistic prints. These are the pictures that formed the core of the Black Star Agency’s operations in New York between 1935 and the early nineties. The agency’s founders, Ernest Mayer, Kurt Safranski, and Kurt Kornfeld, had played significant roles in the development of the visually innovative field of magazine publishing in Germany well into the mid 1930s, when these three intellectual Jewish businessmen fled Nazi Germany for New York. Bringing with them the much sought after knowledge and expertise required for the production of illustrated magazines, Black Star became a major supplier of pictures to Life and numerous other American publications of the day. The Collection tells the story of the unfolding of twentieth century history, including global coverage of major political events, military conflicts, personalities, and cultural milestones from the perspectives of hundreds of photographers working for the daily and weekly press.

The prints selected and digitised for Images of the Berlin Wall illustrate the remarkable history of the Berlin Wall from the events that led to its construction in 1961 to its eventual fall in 1989. Contextualized through an engaging essay by Ryerson University Professor of History and Cold War expert Dr. Arne Kislenko, the story of the Berlin Wall unfolds vividly in front of our eyes. In addition, the contribution by Associate Professor Thierry Gervais addresses the research potential of the Collection and the materiality of the photojournalistic photographs.

Whereas the fall of the Berlin Wall has often been historicized in celebratory terms as the end of the Cold War, the after-life of its fragments has for the most part escaped public scrutiny. Making up the second part of the exhibition, Freedom Rocks is a collaborative project by Blake Fitzpatrick and Vid Ingelevics that involves locating the now-atomized fragments of the Berlin Wall and documenting their present location and histories through still photography and video. Countless small shards of the Wall have been exchanged by Cold War era tourists and can still be found today for sale on the Internet accompanied by dubious "certificates of authenticity". The most visible form of the Wall continues to be the enormous "trophy" slab – full top-to-bottom sections of the Wall still bearing their original graffiti – given as gifts by governments, multinational corporations, universities and museums to one another.  As these disparate pieces of the Wall travel the world they have taken on new contexts and revealed unexpected meanings. In this project, full sections of the Wall and the small chards privately owned by individuals are photographically documented and juxtaposed with video interviews featuring the current owners and custodians. The interviews trace the Wall’s continuing material existence as it has undergone a transformation from concrete dividing line to transient fragment and from historical icon to personal memory.  Fitzpatrick and Ingelevics acknowledge the Wall's continuing material existence and reveal aspects of its journey from past to present, and from Berlin to Washington/DC, Toronto, Los Angeles, and New York.

PRESS:

Berlin Wall: Images of a Great Fall - Toronto Star, October 4, 2009
Where went the Wall? - CNN, November 9, 2009

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Introduction by Doina Popescu The Press Photograph as Historical Object Essay by Thierry Gervais Images of the Berlin Wall Essay by Dr. Arne Kislenko Freedom Rocks Artists' Statement Blake Fitzpatrick & Vid Ingelevics

Introduction par Doina Popescu La Photographie de Presse: un objet d'histoire par Thierry Gervais Images du mur de Berlin par Dr. Arne Kislenko Freedom Rocks Déclaration d'artistes Blake Fitzpatrick & Vid Ingelevics

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