Sunday, November 27, 2016

"Would You Pay $21.4 Million for a Giant Artwork Made for East German Secret Police?"

Maybe.
If you were this lady:

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xbPqAVuWdfM/V4Z-o0immAI/AAAAAAAABVg/rXD20GzszF8yC5mGuhyyHszM9Q2w4smFwCLcB/s1600/stasi.png

Here's the headline story from artnet:

Revolution: Frieden unserem Erdenrund in situ. Photo Thilo Holzmann
A German art historian has discovered a huge work in stained glass, previously installed in the Stasi (secret police) headquarters in former East Berlin and is staging a pop up exhibition during Art Basel Miami Beach with the intention of selling the work for $21.4 million.

The 65-foot screen was originally installed at the Stasi headquarters in Berlin.
Thilo Holzmann discovered the work among his uncle’s possessions, who had bought the 65-foot wide stained-glass piece in 1990, one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the division between East and West Germany. Weighing three tons, the work had been stored away in a shipping container and simply forgotten about.

The screen was designed by Richard Otfried Wilhelm, now 84, who was the chief master of glass for public works in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and was commissioned in 1979 by Erich Mielke, the head of the East German Ministry of State Security, to be installed in the Stasi headquarters.

A major assignment for Wilhelm, “…it was crucial that it be both artistically outstanding and politically powerful,” he told the New York Times.

The huge screen stood in a large room at the headquarters that is now the Stasi Museum. It depicts Lenin and flying doves, a common symbol used by the communist regime. It was a huge undertaking that involved 16 glaziers and took two years to complete....MORE
If you didn't recognize her, the woman in the top picture is Anetta Kahane, the ex-Stasi agent that Chancellor Merkel tasked with monitoring hate speech on Facebook.

I'm no expert but she looks like Hollywood's idea of what an ex-Stasi agent should be.