8.5.15

berliner wieners in the face

Erik Steinbrecher, 'KULTURWÜRSTCHEN', 2007, installation view, pvc objects with pump

John Isaacs, part of the 'NGORONGORO' group show / Berlin gallery weekend
Michael Sailstorfer, part of the group show 'MATERIAL' at Galerie Johann König

Friede sei mit Dir ('Peace be with you') also known as 'The Cock of Berlin', by sculptor Peter Lenk, commissioned in 2009 by the german newspaper Die Tageszeitung (Taz)
"Residing on the exterior wall of the headquarters of left-wing German newspaper Taz the sculpture depicts a naked man with a five-storey-long penis that extends to the roof of the building and narrows into a cobra head at the tip. The man depicted is the editor of the right-wing paper Bildzeitung, Kai Diekmann, whose headquarters have a clear view of the installation from a few hundred meters away. The piece goes back to the two tabloids’ ideological rivalry between left- and right- wing, but began to really take shape in 2002 when the Taz published a satirical editorial about Diekmann’s (probably fictitious) penis enlargement surgery in Florida. It was one of many articles that were a part of the back-and-forth rivalry of the two papers, but this one caught national attention when Diekmann sued the Taz for damage - and lost. The court held, that the claimant in his function as chief editor of Bild had willingly decided to become an actor in a personal rights infringing business, from which he was profiting economically. Some time later, this piece of public art was commissioned as a visual expression of the Taz’ victory." (text excerpt from here)