KW Institute for Contemporary Art
The show will present this unusual and fascinating work in a way that enables visitors to choose their own mode of approach. In fourteen separate rooms, the episodes and the epilogue of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" will be screened in permanent loop. In addition, all the episodes will be shown in chronological order and full length on a central big screen.
Berlin Alexanderplatz
The monumental film Berlin Alexanderplatz that Rainer Werner Fassbinder made for
television is based on Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel. The film consists of thirteen
episodes and an epilogue. It runs to fifteen hours and thirty-nine minutes. When it
was first screened in Germany in 1980, it triggered heated debates and gained
international recognition as one of the cinematic masterpieces of the past decades.
A meticulously restored 35-mm version of Berlin Alexanderplatz: Remastered has been
successfully presented to the public at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival
in February 2007. For the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the reproduction has been
considered as "the event of the film year".
On March 17, 2007, KW will open Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz - An Exhibition.
The show will present this unusual and fascinating work in a way that enables
visitors to choose their own mode of approach. In fourteen separate rooms, the
episodes and the epilogue of Berlin Alexanderplatz will be screened in permanent
loop. In addition, all the episodes will be shown in chronological order and full
length on a central big screen. Visitors can thus decide how they approach Berlin
Alexanderplatz: they can divide its unusual length up into pieces, watch episodes
several times, or return to the exhibition whenever they like, as the entrance
ticket entitles holders to repeated visits. The parallel screening of all the
episodes in one place will highlight Fassbinder's impressive visual idiom and his
artistically challenging, free and innovative use of images. The epilogue to Berlin
Alexanderplatz marks a high point in Fassbinder's creative work, combining visual
and narrative planes in a complex collage that anticipates contemporary artistic
positions. The exhibition also presents stills from the film's 224 scenes. For the
first time ever photos of excerpts and particularly of sketches from Fassbinder's
storyboard will be on view. A further, highly personal document are the tapes on
which Fassbinder himself recorded his script for the film and which have never
previously been made accessible to the public.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue (in German; approx. 700 pages, 40
Euro), edited by Klaus Biesenbach, with essays by Susan Sontag and Rainer Werner
Fassbinder. The catalogue includes extensive illustrations. Furthermore the
publication contains the complete screenplay as well as the biography, bibliography,
and filmography.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a program of talks and guided tours as well as
a film program at Kino Arsenal. You can shortly find further information on the
accompanying program at www.kw-berlin.de.
Curator: Klaus Biesenbach
The exhibition project Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz - An Exhibition is
supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Thanks to the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation
Thanks to Bavaria International
Opening: March 17, 2007, 5 - 9 pm
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69 - Berlin