Utopia, Insurrection, Traffic Jam – What Have We Got to Bequeath?

A Photo Contest Not Only for the Karl-Marx-Allee

Gewinner/innen des Fotowettbewerbs Utopie, Aufstand, Stau | Winners of the photo competition Utopia, Insurrection, Traffic Jam, Christoph Hühne

In the long term, even the Ministry of Culture won’t be able to stymie the official application for Karl-Marx-Allee to become a UNESCO World Heritage site – but what can the boulevard actually bequeath posterity? Is it an example of Berlin’s architectural tradition, or of Moscow’s imperial reach? It was built for those who believed in socialism, yet for those who took socialism literally it became a reason to rebel.
Even a street as monumental as Karl-Marx-Allee is subject to permanent change. Yesterday’s utopia is today’s traffic jam – and what of tomorrow? Where are the traces of the stones and the people? What, exactly, is worth being preserved? These are the questions posed by the photo contest the Fotopioniere and the association Die Allee held during the summer of 2014. The 20 best pictures are shown at the Fotopioniere and in shop windows along Karl-Marx-Allee, the longest exhibition on view during the Month of Photography Berlin.
A work by Christoph Hühne accompanies the presentation; using the example of the refurbishing and disposal of the boulevard’s street lanterns, it demonstrates these changes and the eternal urge to rebellion. In their original form, it seems, some utopian visions end up in history’s rubbish bin, while their copies emerge shining brightly.