Berlin: What Remains of the Wall

An original photographic report by Milan photographer Alessandro Vicario on the twentieth anniversary of German reunification.

Grey, dark, oppressive: the Berlin Wall has always appeared this way in history books documenting its existence, as in the reports on its demolition in 1989. Today, the old monster, reduced to shreds—only fragments remain, scattered around the city—no longer frightens anyone and can even arouse indifference.

It took an outside eye, like that of Milan photographer Alessandro Vicario, to observe those reinforced-concrete surfaces with renewed curiosity. Along the Wall is the title he has chosen for the exhibition at Fondazione Mudima on the twentieth anniversary of German reunification. His journey is, in fact, a metaphorical one: positioned on a tripod on this side of the pavement, the camera, pointing at the Wall, has transformed it into a kind of backdrop before which Berliners pass so quickly that they leave a trace of themselves that is never clearly defined.

There is the boy with a wagging dog, the man photographed against the light so that he seems like a shadow, the barely visible cyclist and the girl who leaves only the suggestion of a smile. Where graffiti artists have covered the surface with images, curious encounters arise: painted hands seem to grasp the figure passing in front of them, while another moves to avoid a splash of paint. Accompanied by a video and a catalogue with texts by curators Roberta Valtorta and Giovanni Pelloso, the exhibition unfolds across the gallery’s two floors, alternating these dynamic images with others that Vicario made by photographing the Wall at close range, transforming it into a surface that seems to have been created by an abstract painter. Here the marks made by time emerge: the roughness of the concrete and fissures that open to reveal the reinforcing bars. Yet what remains striking is the unsettling message the photographer sought to capture: the tragic reality of recent history is now observed with detachment, perhaps through indifference, or perhaps through an ability to look ahead while giving the past only a distracted glance.

The exhibition: Along the Wall. Berlin 2009. Photographs by Alessandro Vicario. Fondazione Mudima, Via Tadino 26, until 20 November. 02.29409633.

Two photographs from the report made by Alessandro Vicario in Berlin in 2009, along the remains of the Wall.