Eintracht/Zwietracht (Bridge)

Eintracht/Zwietracht (Bridge) is based on a peculiar characteristic of the Glienicker Brücke, a bridge spanning the Havel river outside Berlin. During the Cold War, the border separating the GDR and West Germany ran neatly down the center of the bridge, and between 1962 and 1986 the bridge repeatedly became the scene of spy exchanges.

Today, the only physical remains of this history are a seam in the tarmac and an anomaly in the colour of the of bridge’s paint: while both political systems evidently agreed on the colour green, each interpreted this chromatic category differently.

In exhibition, a large wall area is painted with two equally sized, immediately adjacent colour fields. The Western side of the bridge is represented by the specific German Industry Norm paint originally used. The colour representing the Eastern side matches the current, by now bleached, East German paint that was originally applied to that side of the Bridge. A photograph of the bridge itself is circulated parallel to the exhibition, as a postcard or poster.