Of Bees & Bunkers
23.06.23

Pavillon am Milchhof
Schwedter Str.232, 10435 Berlin

Richard Green (1993, Berlin) touches on universal themes in his work that go far beyond the experience of an individual life. They elaborate essences: Becoming and passing, transformation and process, allure and imprisonment, pleasure and violence. Supposedly organic as well as man-made and shaped material merge into sculptures informed by wartime architecture is countered by their transience. Fragility and decay are pushed to the forefront, nothing is for eternity, not even human existence. Protection and security are illusions.

The works shown at Milchhof Pavillon were created in Wünsdorf, which is situated south of Berlin and is marked by the principles of violence and power. At the beginning of the 20th century, a military base was established here, the history of which and its buildings can be seen and felt to the present day. When the Nazis seized power, Wünsdorf was transformed into a training centre and the communication headquarters of the Wehrmacht. 19 Winkel type air raid bunkers date from this period. Until 1994, Wünsdorf was a base for Soviet troops,  seven of the bunkers from the Nazi era remain intact.

In a dialogue with the form and history of the remainders of one of these Spitzbunker, Richard Green focuses on its negated yet inevitable transience.

The sugar sculpture in the centre of the exhibition appears as a harmless source of energy that simultaneously suggests power and its dissolution.

The illusions of blasted bunker parts formed from beeswax surrender to their deformation.

Like splashes of blood, shards of limestone from the bunker lie on a dissecting table.

Ants and bees are attracted to the materiality of the sugar Spitzbunker in the forest. What appears to be simple food becomes a trap at the same time. The insects are accomplices in the cycle of life, they seal the fate of decomposition.