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 A Fragment of the Berlin Wall in the
1 Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal1 :
Notes Toward a Theory of the Public Artefact
at the "End of History"

Marc James Leger

A Thesis
in

The Department

of

Art History

Presented in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Master of Arts at
Concordia University
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

September 1997

© Marc James Leger 1997

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 ABSTRACT

A Berlin Wall Fragment in the 'Centre de commerce

Mondial de Montreal': Notes Toward a Theory of the Public
Artefact at the "End of History"
Marc James Leger

The contemporary critical art practices of situational

aesthetics and site specificity have affected and transformed

the production and reception of monumental public art. This
thesis examines the placement of a fragment of the Berlin Wall

in the 'Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal' in light of

the knowledge produced by these political and aesthetic

practices. In keeping with materialist approaches to the

study of art as well as to urban space, the production of the

Wall fragment as a public monument is understood in terms of

social relations and representation. By paying close
attention to multiple spatial, aesthetic and social contexts,
it is argued that the placement of the fragment in the CCMM
yields specific meanings and preferred readings. While the

interpretation provided in this thesis is situated and

partial, it nevertheless makes the claim that the site chosen

for this example of public art puts into question and

undermines the very notion of the public sphere, that is, the

same political ideal which establishes and legitimates "public

art" as a social practice.

 iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to those people that have done the most in

creating opportunities that have opened up the range of

possibilities for this work. I would particularly like to

acknowledge the generous encouragement of my thesis

supervisor. Dr. Janice Helland, as well as that of professors
Claude Lacroix and David Tomas. The commitment of these
individuals to critical education has more than anything

sustained my enthusiasm for learning. I would also like to

acknowledge the teachings and support of professors Joan

Acland, Jean Belisle, Ernestine Daubner, Brian Foss, Loren

Lerner, Catherine MacKenzie and Christine Ross. Above all,

this work is dedicated to my family and especially to Rosika

Desnoyers who has untiringly given her attention to the

editing and questioning of my work. This thesis could not

have been accomplished without her help and understanding.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the financial support of

Concordia University in the awarding of a J.W. McConnell

Memorial Graduate Fellowship as well as the Art History

Department's granting of a David Rubin Research Award.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Introduction................................ 1
Public Aesthetics and Spatial Theory

Chapter One................................. 20
Meaning and Monumentality: the Specificity
of the Berlin Wall

Chapter Two................................. 37
Critical Public Art, Critical Democracy and
the Contradictions of Public Representation

Chapter Three............................... 75
The CCMM Context: the Ideology of
Redevelopment

Conclusion................................. 116
After the "End of History"

Bibliography............................... 129

Illustrations.............................. 164

Appendix 1................................. 199

Appendix II................................ 205

Appendix III............................... 215

Appendix IV................................ 227

Appendix V................................. 232

 vi

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Barbara Kruger, Untitled (We Don't Need Another Hero)

1986, Berkeley, CA. In Sussman, 12.

2. Fragment of the Berlin Wall in the 'Centre de commerce

mondial de Montreal.' Montreal Public Art Collection.
Photo by Robert Etcheverry in Vie des Arts #157 (Winter
1994-1995) 8.
3. Fragment of the Berlin Wall in the Government
Conference Centre, Ottawa. Photo by Wolf Studios.

4. Berlin Wall segment No.61 for sale at auction, Monte

Carlo, 1990. Die Mauer: The Berlin Wall, Special Auction.

5. "Mauer-Sprecht, " January 7, 1990. Photo by Heinz J.

Kuzdas in Berliner MauerKunst, 77.

6. Selling Berlin Wall Souvenirs in New York City.

Michael Marriott, "Sale of the Century! Bits of Cold
War, Just $7 an Ounce," New York Times (22 November
1989) Bl. Photo by Bill Swersey.

7. Post-Graffiti: Top, "Statues of Liberty," by Thierry

Noir and Christophe Bouchet; Bottom, work by Keith
Haring. Photos in Kuzdas, 44.
8. Graffiti influenced by comics and neo-expressionism.
Painted by Cremenz, detail of panorama. Photo in
Kuzdas, 68.
9. Rainer Fetting, Van Gogh and Wall, 1978, oil on canvas,
79.2 x 98.9". Photo in Rogoff, The Divided Heritage,
313.
10. Jonathan Borofsky, Running Man, 1982, Berlin Wall.
Photo in McShine, 187.
11. The "white stripe" painted by peace activists in late
1986 between Mariannenplatz and Potsdamer Platz. Photo
in Kuzdas, 66.
12. 1917 bronze replica of Houdon statue of George Washington
outside the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo in Buchloh,
ed. Michael Asher, 212.
13. Michael Asher installation, Art Institute of Chicago,
1979. Photo in Buchloh, ed. Michael Asher, 221.
 vii

Illustrations...

14. Krzysztof Wodiczko, projection onto Lenin Monument,

Leninplatz, East Berlin, 1990. Photo in Public Address:
Krzysztof Wodiczko, 158.

15. Komar & Mel amid, What Is To Be Done With Monumental

Propaganda? Lenin Mausoleum proposal. Photo in Weschler,
61.
16. Mark Lewis, On the Monuments of the Republic #2, 1990.
C-Print, 218.4 x 188cm. Photo in Watson, 37.

17. Mark Lewis, What Is To Be Done (Lenin) facing Roger

Langevin's Debout (Felix Leclerc) in Parc Lafontaine.
Photo by Jacques Nadeau, Le Devoir (12 February 1991) B3.
18. Roger Langevin, Debout, 1989. Photo by Marc Leger.

19. Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz, Monument Against

Fascism, Harburg, 1986. Photo in Young, The Texture of
Memory, 29.

20. Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal with Montreal

Stock Exchange in background. Photo courtesy of Arcop.

21. St. James Street, c.1910. McCord Museum, Notman

Archives, #MP207278 (1) (not-Notman).
22. Advertisement in publicity brochure. Living in Old
Montreal: A love affair that begins anew everyday of
the year (Montreal: Societe de ddveloppement de Montreal,
1996) .

23. CCMM under construction. Photo by Jean Goupil,

La Presse (27 October 1988).
24. Robert Mitchell building, 1982. Ville de Montreal,
Repertoire....; Architecture Industrielle, 22.

25. Nordheimer building, 1896. McCord Museum, Notman

Archives, #114,796-11 (Notman).
26. CCMM proposal, St. Jacques Street elevations.
Publicity brochure, Societe de promotion du CCMM.
27. CCMM proposal, St. Antoine Street elevations.
Publicity brochure, Societe de promotion du CCMM.
 Illustrations...

28. Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Lery, Plan of the town of

Montreal (1725). Reproduced in Lambert and Stewart,
23-24.
29. Archaeological "superpositions." Ethnoscop,
Quadrilatere McGill..., appendix.
30. CCMM arcade, McGill Street entrance. Photo Marc Leger.

31. Interior arcade, 'ruelle des Fortifications.'

Le CCMM: Un monde nouveau.

32. Interior arcade, 'ruelle des Fortifications.'

Le CCMM: Un monde nouveau.

33. Eaton Centre arcade, Montreal. Publicity pamphlet,

courtesy of Eaton Centre.
34. 'Passage Choisseul' (arcade), Paris (1825-1827). Photo
in Geist, 512.

35. Advertisement, Ministere des Affaires Internationales,

in La Revue Exportations Quebec (Nov/Dec 1995) back
cover.
Venez decouvrir Ie Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal

IT 5 Н ’ 9К2«ЧШ
Ie nouveau monde des affaires et point nevralgique du commerce mondial de
Montreal. Entrez dans une extraordinaire ville interieure au coeur de la vie
montrealaise.
Affaires internationales ♦ Congres ♦ Missions commerciales ♦ Expositions
♦ Bureaux ♦ Boutiques ♦ Restaurants ♦ Hotel Inter-Continental Montreal.

747, SQUARE VICTORIA, MONTREAL, QUI-HEC, CANADA, H2Y .179

Come and discover the Montreal World Trade Centre
the new era of business and Montreal focal point for international trade. Step
within, and discover an extraordinary neighbourhood in the heart of Montreal.
International Affairs ♦ Congress ♦ Commercial Missions ♦ Exhibits
♦ Offices ♦ Boutiques ♦ Restaurants ♦ Hotel Inter-Continental Montreal.

Voyez un segment du Mur de Berlin (collection d’art public de la ville de Montreal)

See a segment of the Berlin Wall (collection of public art of the City of Montreal)
 INTRODUCTION

Whoever has emerged victorious participates to

this day in the triumphal procession in which the
present rulers step over those who are lying
prostrate. According to traditional practice, the
spoils are carried along in the procession. They
are called cultural treasures, and a historical
materialist views them with cautious detachment.
For without exception the cultural treasures he
surveys have an origin which he cannot contemplate
without horror.
- Walter Benjamin1

But we are faced with a difficult task: to review

the basic assumption and the unfolding of this
history stage by stage, document by document, to
evaluate its results and see how it meets the
demands of the present day. A mass of dogmas which
hardly anyone believes in anymore will be discarded
in the process: among others, the dogma that history
has "winners."
- Christa Wolf2

Since the time and place I began my research for this

thesis, I have considered Benjamin's reflection on the notion

of progress in secular time as an emblem for my approach to

the study of the dispersal and consequent display of

monumental fragments of the Berlin Wall. In her short article

on the consumption of Wall souvenirs, Lori Turner fittingly

cited Benjamin's "Thesis on the Philosophy of History" as her

epigraph.3 I repeat that passage here as an opening

Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in

Hannah Arendt, ed. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1968, 1969) 256.
2Christa Wolf in Alexander Stephan, ed. The Author' s
Dimension, Selected Essays trans. Jan Van Heurck (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993) 301.
3Lori Turner, "The Berlin Wall: Fragment as Conimodity,"
Border/Lines #19 (Fall 1990) 2-4.
 2
reflection. But I have also added Christa Wolf's critique of

the notion that there are "winners" in the first place, and by

extension, that there are "losers," or histories that have

ostensibly been forgotten. These entrenched notions impede

the imagining of an alternative to the view of history as a

"state of emergency" awaiting revolutionary liberation, and,

related to the former, a nostalgic quietism mourning the loss

of utopian hopes. Wolf wrote that for the East Germans, the

concept of the Communist "victory" over Fascism during WWII

prevented people from confronting the past and effectively

resisting the oppressive structures and attitudes of

Stalinism. In this thesis, I am making a similar claim for

the resistance to the notion of a Western capitalist victory

over Communism. This is not a defense of State socialism, but

rather a critique of the assumptions surrounding concepts of

history and progress in the age of "global competitiveness"

and a triumphant New World Order. In the present historical

conjuncture, this claim expresses a call for alternatives to

the austerity politics of the hegemonic form of conservative
neo-liberalism.
Writing in October of 1989 at the height of the superpower

arms buildup and simultaneous public discussions of deterrence

and disarmament, Wolf called for disarmament in the area of
ideas and ideology. In light of such a plea, the task at hand

would be to move parallel to, and beyond, the critical work of

remembering and writing the history of the forgotten, and to
 3
deconstruct the very language of competition, progress,

restoration, and victory. I believe that this dual principle

is characteristic of critical postmodernism. (Fig.l) Critical

postmodernism contests the combative features of struggle

while at the same time remaining committed to its emancipatory

promise and social analytic. Rosemary Hennessy has posed this

very problem of deconstruction and critical engagement from

the perspective of materialist feminism.* Similarly, Stanley

Aronowitz questions the supposed improbability of

postmodernism as an affirmative culture, often pessimistically

explained away with regard to its ironic stance toward the

utopias of modernity. With regard to the work of criticism,

however, tie warns that "our desire for closure is lodged too

deeply in the wounded psyche to be eradicated by even the most

powerful weapons of criticism."s Aronowitz suggests that if
critical postmodernism "has not wholly succeeded, part of the

fault lies with the immensity of its aspirations."6

Ironically, the ambitions of contemporary theory - including

feminism, postcolonialism, poststructuralism, deconstruction,

post-Althusserian ideology critique, critical theory, queer

theory, materialist philosophy, identity politics, and so on -

*Rosemary Hennessy, Materialist Feminism and the Politics of

Discourse (New York: Routledge, 1993); for an alternate view,
see Michele Barrett, The Politics of Truth: From Marx to
Foucault (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).
5Stanley Aronowitz, Dead Artists, Live Theories, and Other
Cultural Problems (New York: Routledge, 1994) 43.
6Aronowitz, 43.
 4

have been on the monumental scale of the metadiscourses of the

past. Their methods, however, operate on a different

register, with temperate utopian disclosures.

Critical postmodernism describes the theoretical direction

of this work. While many approaches are taken up, I would

emphasize that this is not in the service of a theoretical

pluralism. Throughout this project I have been reminded of

the necessity of a sustained critical and historically

grounded understanding of the structures that overdetermine

social space and the public articulation of critical
democracy. The general subject of my thesis is contemporary

forms of monumental public art. In Chapter Two I examine some

of the aspects of situational aesthetics and site specificity.

These art practices participate in the material enunciation of

critical postmodernism and question the function of

representation in the production of a public. On the subject

of the monumental form, I am largely in agreement with James

E. Young's study, The Texture of Memory. Young opens with a

reflection on the near total destruction of the Berlin Wall

and the industrious and efficient consumption of its memory.

This phenomenon is a perfect example of the ability of

aesthetic forms - say, Berlin Wall souvenirs and monuments -

to mediate, displace, and perhaps even erase memory. Young

understands the constructedness of such cultural artefacts,

which makes of them dialogical sites of remembrance and
 5

meaning. These artefacts are affected by their uses and

contexts and in turn affect their contexts as well as related

social practices. Young's study mentions how state-sponsored

memorials often marshall images of a heroic national past,

triumphs over barbarism and solemn commemorations of defeated

martyrs. He argues that "only rarely does a nation call upon

itself to remember the victims of crimes it has perpetrated."7

This problematic of critical versus monumental (pedagogical)

history points to a discrepancy between the characteristics of

critical and community public art on the one hand, and

official public art in the form of public relations management

and its discourse of unity, beauty and public utility.

It is my argument that elements of critical public art can

be recognized in the representational strategy of the Berlin

Wall fragment/monument located in the 'Centre de commerce
mondial de Montreal' (CCMM or Montreal World Trade Centre).

(Fig.2) I also believe that these persist, however, in an

inverted or diverted form, this having much to do with the

inability of liberal culture to picture the dismantling of

Stalinist regimes as anything other than a sign of the

unquestionable hegemony of its own (always mutating) socio­

economic and aesthetic logic. As Wolf aptly remarked, this

rhetorical stance has much to do with capitalism's need to

7James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials

and Meaning (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993) 21.
 б

cover up its own contradictions and problems.8 I would

identify this cynical liberalism as a not uncommon instance of

ironic or conservative postmodernism.9 What makes

conservative postmodernism such a remarkably effective

discourse is that it denies progressive practices cultural

legitimacy at the same time as it manipulates these to its own

ends. Critical and conceptual art works, for instance, are

routinely critiqued in liberal art discourse for being

authoritarian in manner and communicational intention.10

With the Berlin Wall fragment viewed as an aesthetic artefact,

and in the display rhetoric of its contextualization, one can

recognize an informed use of contemporary strategies of

critical public art and a simultaneous discarding of its

vanguardist principles. This can be observed in the

synchronous emphasis on and disavowal of context as a defining
element in the meaning of the art work/artefact - a typical

8Wolf, 296.
’For a critique of conservative postmodernism, see Terry
Eagleton, "Capitalism, Modernism and Postmodernism," in
Francis Frascin and Jonathan Harris, eds. Art in Modern
Culture: An Anthology of Critical Texts (London: Phaidon
Press, 1992) 91.
10Work influenced by conceptualism, for instance, work which
is politically challenging and which critiques pervasive forms
of cynicism is attacked as authoritarian or propagandistic, or
even more insidiously, as bad art. For a look at the workings
of liberal art discourse in New York in the late 1970s and
early 1980s, see Rosalyn Deutsche and Cara Gendel Ryan, "The
Fine Art of Gentrification," October #31 (Winter 1984) 91-111.
 7

strategy of "post-indexical" site specific works.11 The

simultaneous fetishization and disavowal of context

(Deutsche), the abandonment of institutional critique, the

"unreflexive manipulation of one's surroundings" (Molesworth),

and the reification of the reification of perception by the

exhibition space (Kibbins) are prime examples of how displays

such as the CCMM's invert the critical strategies of site

specificity.12 These shifts partially explain why we can now

find so many Wall monuments installed in such variable yet

still "specific" contexts.

I would like to consider this problematic of display as an

issue of representation and turn on this subject to questions

of spatial theory. Based on modern linguistics, semiotics,

materialism, psychoanalysis, feminism and postcolonialism,

postmodern theory has destabilized the epistemological truth

claims of realist philosophies. In the field of social and

critical theory, marxists have reacted strongly to the

“On the nature of the "post-indexical" installation, see

Johanne Lamoureux, "Places and Commonplaces of the
Picturesque," trans. Donald McGrath, in Jessica Bradley and
Lesley Johnstone, eds. Sightlines: Reading Contemporary
Canadian Art (Montreal: Artextes, 1994) 284-309; see also
Lamoureux, "Exhibitionitis : A Contemporary Ailment," in The
Institute for Contemporary Art, PSI Museum, Theatergarden
Bestiarium: The Garden as Theater as Museum (Cambridge: The
MIT Press, 1990) 114-127.
12Rosalyn Deutsche, "Uneven Development: Public Art in New York
City," October #47 (Winter 1988) 14; Helen Molesworth et. al.,
"On Site Specificity," Documents 2:4/5 (Spring 1994) 11; Gary
Kibbins, "The Enduring of the Artsystem," Parachute #29
(Dec/Jan/Feb 1982-83) 6.
 8
aesthetic and visual primacy of postmodernist culture and have

discussed the features of contemporary culture in spatial

terms.13 As a result, the field of cultural and marxist

geography has had much influence in other disciplines. From

a marxist and feminist perspective, Doreen Massey has charted

some of the theoretical outlines of this emerging field of

study.

In her essay, "The Politics of Space/Time," Massey

provides a critical review of the use of spatial metaphors and

temporal categories in contemporary theory. She questions the

views of postmodernism that separate time/space, which she

sees as an integrated concept, one which contains within its

conditions of possibility the prospect of politics as being

socially constituted. The distinction between space and time,

she argues, has been complicated by radical geography,

13Some of the more well-known critiques include the work of Guy

Debord (1967), Frederic Jameson (1991), David Harvey (1989),
Edward Soja (1989), and Martin Jay (1994). Jameson and Soja
have different approaches to the understanding of the primacy
of the spatial in postmodem culture. Anne Friedberg
reiterates this critical view when she states that
postmodernism annihilates time by space; Friedberg, "Les
Flaneurs du Mal(l): Cinema and the Postmodern Condition,"
Publications of the Modern Language Association of America
106:3 (May 1991) 419-431. For important feminist critiques of
Jameson and Soja, see: Rosalyn Deutsche, "Men in Space,"
Artforum (February 1990) 21-23, "Boys Town," Environment and
Planning D: Society and Space Vol.9 (1991) 5-30, and "City
Fathers," Art & Text #42 (1992) 56-86; Doreen Massey,
"Flexible Sexism," in her text, Space, Place, and Gender
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993) 212-248.
 9

feminist criticism and by physics.14 Some of the implications

of physics for the social sciences are that the spatial can be

thought of as a temporal movement; this movement, in turn, can

be seen to have spatial relations. Space, as interrelations,

is conceptualized as "the simultaneous coexistence of social

interaction at all spatial scales".15 The spatial implies

disruption, dislocation and movement. This understanding goes

some distance in disturbing the fixity of notions of the

postmodern as synchronic and schizophrenic intensities.

In reviewing the criticism of postmodernity, Massey

attempts to shift the framework for marxist cultural analysis

and to bring to theory an understanding of time/space which

partially recovers some of the ground lost to negative

dialectics and revolutionary nostalgia. She refutes the

desire for a novel archimedean perspective on contemporary

culture. Equally, she challenges the economism of culture

critique and its obliviousness to the ways that time/spaces

are gendered.
Another alternative view of postmodernism has been put

forth by Andreas Huyssen. In Twilight Memories, Huyssen looks

at the anxious production of monuments and museums in

contemporary Western society. Against the prevailing

14Doreen Massey, "Politics of Space/Time," New Left Review #196

(1992) 65-84. See also Gillian Rose, Feminism & Geography:
The Limits of Geographical Knowledge (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1993).

15Massey, "Politics of Space/Time," 80.

 10

dismissal of dis-located representational constructions or

spaces of representation, Huyssen is interested in the play of

memory and forgetting which underwrites all such

reconstructions. Rather than alter our understanding of the

malaise of postmodernity, Huyssen maintains this general

perception of the crisis of historicity, while focusing

instead on the dialectic of the utopian imaginary which is

apparent in the "museal" sensibility. He writes:

It is in this context of a loss of confidence in the
utopian powers of art to either conjure up, approximate,
or embody a utopian plenitude - in life, in the text, or
in transcendence - that the contemporary turn to history,
memory, and the past assumes its full significance.16
The monumentalization of Berlin Wall fragments, then, even if

displayed as the trophies of the victors of the Cold War,

could at the same time be interpreted as the embodiments of

gestures of remembrance. What Huyssen makes clear, and what

I would like to relate to Massey's understanding of

time/space, is that in discussing postmodernity, neither the

spatial nor the temporal should be prioritized against a

reductive understanding of the other. Furthermore, a
materialist study should not privilege the categories of
economy and class over forms of historical practice such as

gender and race, which intersect and ground time/space

relations in different ways. For this study, issues of space

and place will be understood as problems of representation.

16Andreas Huyssen, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture

of Amnesia (New York: Routledge, 1995) 100.
 11

These representations narrativize social relations but are

nevertheless also sites of interpretive work and consumption.

Doreen Massey proposes an alternative notion of space

which simultaneously comprises a number of spatial scales and

interrelations. Her concept of space incorporates elements of
radical geography, a way of thinking space in terms of lived

practice, and which is exemplified by the writings of the

philosopher Henri Lefebvre. In The Production of Space,

Lefebvre presents his theory of "social space" which is an

implicit critique of the scientific (Cartesian) division of

Object (the world of things) and Subject (mental and

mathematical reference point). Social space is not reducible

to language and thus provides Lefebvre's concept with a
rhetorical - if somewhat naturalist - distinction from the

theoretical approaches of much post-structuralist thinking.17

Lefebvre’s theory has appeared in the sociological

literature as an attempt to overcome the difficulties of the

structure-agency dichotomy. His focus on the processual and

on "everyday life" provides a language to represent space as

something that is the ground of action (relations of

production and social reproduction) and a social product. His

well-known aphorism states that "(social) space is a (social)

17Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space trans. Donald

Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).
 12

product".18 Lefebvre's theory describes the course of

European spatial history to present-day abstract capitalist

space. As a "concrete abstraction," capitalist space takes on

the qualities of the commodity-form. Within this spatial

economy, spatial relations and modes of behaviour are

culturally circumscribed. Routines, habits and

predispositions are partly consensual. "Abstract space," he

writes,
works in a highly complex way. It has something of a
dialogue about it, in that it implies a tacit agreement,
a non-aggressive pact, a contract, as it were, of non­
violence. It imposes a reciprocity, and a communality of
use.19

The emphasis on process means that structures are subject to

change, appropriation and transformation over time.

Lefebvre's terminology in this statement, far from being a

romantic endorsement of transgression, has to do with his

insistence that violence and coercion are dissimulated but

omnipresent aspects of a capitalist space which requires the

legal machinations of a contractual society.

Lefebvre's concept of the everyday resembles Pierre
Bourdieu's theory of the 'habitus', a process of experience

18On the relation of Lefebvre's theory of everyday life to

marxist writing, see his "Toward a Leftist Cultural Politics:
Remarks Occasioned by the Centenary of Marx's Death," in Cary
Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, eds. Marxism and the
Interpretation of Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1988) 78-88. A review of The Production of Space by
Hayden White can be found in Design Book Review #29/30
(Summer/Fall 1993) 90-93.
19Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 56.
 13

that leads to individual and cultural predispositions. As Rob

Shields explains in Places on the Margin, Bourdieu’s notion of

the 'habitus' reworks concepts of ideological determination

and interpellation which are often based on economistic

theories. The 'habitus' mediates structures and individual

predispositions. Shields cautions, however, that "eventhough
structures are said to be produced in and through the medium

of practice, structures are later treated as if dissociated

from practice."20

Shields compares Bourdieu's focus on 'habitus' as

disposition to Michel Foucault's term 'dispositif or

apparatus. Here, a spatial logic describes positionalities as

they relate to power and discipline and as they are inscribed

within discourses. "The human body enters a spatial machinery

of power that explores it, breaks it down, and rearranges it,

allocating to each person a place, and to each place a

person."21 Nevertheless, Shields argues that Foucault's
theory is also inadequate in that it fails to account for the
discursive ruptures, suppressed voices, and the formation of
individual predispositions. It is not clear, however, to what

extent Shields himself is willing to debate the nature of the

subject as it is constituted in ideology.

20Rob Shields, Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies

of Modernity (London: Routledge, 1991) 37. See Bourdieu's
theory in La Distinction: critigue sociale du jugement (Paris:
Les editions de minuit, 1979).

21Shields, 40.
 14

Shields attempts to overcome the limitations of Bourdieu's

and Foucault's approaches by looking at both the discursive

and the non-discursive (circumventing the terminology of

materialism), and by avoiding a unified structure that

attempts to discover the secret of the mediation between

everyday life and reality. Instead, his concept of "social

spatialization" is interested in the "pre-constructed cultural

discourse about sites." Social spatialization, he writes,

recodes disparate problematics to show that anomalies and

paradoxes in social theory... resulted because of
numerous dichotomies and dualisms (public-private; base­
superstructure; economy-culture) .22
To counter this, Shields returns to Lefebvre's under stcinding

of the spatial as that which is both materially produced and

a concrete abstraction. A point of contact between the two

theories will be Shields' focus on place-images which then

translate into routines or social relations. I believe that

it is worth pursuing this point further as it affects my

understanding of the production of the CCMM as a place-image.

In Shields' re-reading of Lefebvre, the representational

(imaginary/mythical) is related to social practice. This is

conceded in light of Lefebvre's three-point dialectic or

unified (rhetorical) theory of spatialization. The first of

these three categories is that of spatial practices. Spatial

practices include individual routines and places that are

perceived or produced in specific ways. Lefebvre mentions

“Shields, 31.
 15

that a spatial practice "ensures continuity and some degree of

cohesion. .. this cohesion implies a guaranteed level of

competence and a specific level of performance.1,23 The

sedimentation of spatial practices affirms structures over

time which in turn suggest the "propriety" of particular

actions. In this sense, even someone's private life falls

under this rubric. A spatial practice implies the use of the

body.

The second of this three-part theory is the category of

the conceived called representations of space. These

representations are tied to the capitalist relations of
production and to their underlying systems of knowledge and

value. Representations of space are designed by the

specialists who interest themselves in both spatial practices

and spaces of representation (the third point). Lefebvre

implies that there is a desire to control space since

representations of space are more commonly produced

instrumentally by real estate developers, urban planners,

technocratic subdividers, scientists, social engineers and so

on; he also adds ethnographers, psychologists and social
scientists to this group. Marketing agents and public

relations specialists would undoubtedly also fit into this

category. Their representations of space contribute to a

second order common sense which, as Shields mentions, are

23Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 56.

 16

"central to forms of knowledge and claims of truth".24

The category of the lived is termed representational

spaces or as Shields prefers, spaces of representation. Such

spaces are codified and symbolic. As with language, their

meaning is conventional; as such, dominant practices

associated with spaces of representation can and will

inevitably be transgressed. Representational space, Lefebvre

writes, is
space as directly lived through its associated images and
symbols, and hence the space of "inhabitants" and
"users"... This is the dominated - and hence passively
experienced - space which the imagination seeks to change
and appropriate. It overlays physical space, making use
of its objects. Thus representational spaces may be
said, though again with certain exceptions, to tend
towards more or less coherent systems of non-verbal
symbols and signs.25

Shields describes this category as that of the discursive

which entails a conditioning of the possibilities and
conceptions of reality, of expectations and desires as well as

expressions of symbolic resistance.

In order to bring these three categories together in a

study of space, Lefebvre would recommend taking into account

the history of the site, of its representations, and the
spatial practices that constitute the associated relations of
production. This implies that places undergo transformations

in terms of individual as well as collective uses and

24Shields, 45. This notion of a second order level of meaning

resembles Roland Barthes' early text, Mythologies trans.
Annette Lavers (New York: The Noonday Press, 1990).

25Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 39.

 17

perceptions. The original site of the Berlin Wall affords a

good example of such a layered space of both domination and

resistance, a place of particular social practices, a space

represented by artists and professionals, and a

representational space used most effectively in the post-Wall

era by competitive business and government interests. The

focus of my study, however, is more specifically concerned

with the placement of a particular fragment of the Wall in a

particular time and place. As a space of representation, the

CCMM transforms the 'ruelle des Fortifications' from a street

to an indoor arcade which is accessible to the public, but

which is privately owned. A shopping area on the main floor

provides luxury conveniences for the Centre1s users. The

placement of the Berlin Wall fragment on the site of

Montreal's eighteenth-century fortifications and on the site

of the CCMM arcade, effectively transforms the uses,

perceptions and representations of a local context. It also

brings to date this city's image as a regional node in an

international system of capital exchange.

In the chapters to follow, I will examine the case study

with respect to different modes of analysis. Chapter One

provides a brief introduction to the Berlin Wall as a site of

aesthetic curiosity. Its nuanced and highly charged

significance made the Berlin Wall an object destined to be

preserved in paradoxical and contradictory ways. This idea
 18

will be related to the problematic of "proper" contexts and

means of display. The next chapter moves away from the case

study to the terrain of contemporary art and the work that

artists Michael Asher, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Komar & Melamid,

Mark Lewis, and Esther Shalev-Gerz with Jochen Gerz have

contributed to the contemporary discourse of monumentality,

and in particular, with regard to the fate of the totalitarian

public art of East European countries. This section is

prefaced by some reflections on the normative category of "the

public." Chapter Three extends the theme of

construction/destruction and commemoration which is developed
in the previous chapter. It shifts the focus to the CCMM and

its function in the redevelopment of Old Montreal. Finally,

Chapter Four brings many of these elements together in a

discussion of the significance of placing a segment of the

Berlin Wall in the newly built World Trade Centre. While a

discussion of the rhetoric of the New World Order seems to

have gained some historicity and has already been dismissed

from critical fashionability, I believe that it is

nevertheless important to review some of the early instances

of its expression, so that these do not simply find themselves
deposited in the collected imaginary like the monuments of a

colonial metropolis.
Because the City of Montreal1 s ' Service de la culture'
took great care in choosing a site for its Wall fragment, a
significant collection of documents can be found in its
 19

archive. Due to the limited scope of this thesis, I have

listed a chronology of the fragment's handling in the Appendix

section. I have also included the course of the Ottawa

fragment in order to provide a comparative study. (Fig.3)

Appendices on the history of the Berlin Wall as well as on the

dismantling and dispersal of Wall souvenirs and monumental

(slab) fragments have also been included. The last appendix

is a proposal for a temporary sound installation that I have

developed and have proposed for transmission in the CCMM as an

addition to the Wall fragment display.

The proposal that I have made as an artist furthers my

theoretical claim that public representations make claims on

us as citizens. A critical approach to public art requires

involvement with the democratic process of representation

inside and outside of established institutions. What I have

attempted to emphasize in both written and artistic projects
is that no unified theory of space or culture is adequate to
the study of the Berlin Wall fragment and the architectural

site of the 'Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal.' Theory

is used as a device for helping to understand, analyze and
live in the materiality of sites and social relations. It is

not their replacement. On the other hand, to insist on the

priority of objects, I believe, is to misconceive the nature
of the representational activity of academic and cultural

practices.
 CHAPTER 1

In its present North American location, the Montreal

fragment synthesizes a specific history with the meaning of

the site in which it is placed. Although outside of its

referential context, it nevertheless carries with it a certain

baggage which includes not only the history of its

construction, but of its destruction as well and the

consequent conditions in which it was produced as a symbol of

the end of the Cold War. In the following section I will

briefly examine the aesthetic interest of the Wall for artists

in the 1980s and relate this to issues of site specificity.

By the mid-1980s, long stretches of the Berlin Wall were

covered with layers of graffiti and paintings in the neo­

expressionist manner. The Wall's artistic character made it

so that pre-cast slabs like the Montreal fragment were sold

for twice the amount of segments with no obvious aesthetic

interest. In Monte Carlo, in June of 1990, the Government of

the German Democratic Republic, through the auspices of Limex-

Bau Export-Import, placed 81 Wall segments on the auction

block.1 In the auction catalogue, the graffiti artists' names

were provided when identification was possible. (Fig.4) This

aesthetic element, which in the 1980s made the Berlin Wall the

Valerie Park Palace, Die Mauer: The Berlin Wall, Special

Auction (Saturday 23 June, 21.00 Hours, Monte Carlo, Hotel
Metropole Palace (Berlin: LeLe Berlin Wall Verkaufs - und
Wirtschaftswerbung GmbH, 1990). The East German government is
reported to have saved 360 of the 45,000 pre-cast concrete
slabs. This restricted number allowed the authorities to
control the sale and value of Wall segments.
 21

eighth wonder of the world and a popular tourist destination,

later constituted the defunct artefact as a highly charged

object of conspicuous consumption.

I would identify two broad phases in the dispersal of slab

segments. The first relates to its ludic consumption,

purchased from an obsolete communist government as a symbol of

the capitalist victory of the Cold War; the second phase

begins when a newly united Germany donates fragments to cities

and governments as symbolic diplomatic gifts. The Montreal

and Ottawa segments both correspond to this second phase.

What I would emphasize, however, is that while the two phases

are separated in terms of social practice, the objects

themselves carry residual meanings that maintain the

fragments' broad historical significance as much as their

ironic value as post-Cold War follies.

An equally important aspect of the Wall's dispersal and

fragmentation are the small pieces that individuals chiselled

off from the time of the opening of the border in November of
1989 to the time of its almost complete demolition one year

later. Souvenir hunters were called "Mauer-sprecht" (wall­

peckers). The sale of segments in shopping centres throughout

the Western world was the most widespread aspect of the

consumption of the Wall. (Figs.5,6) As with the pre-cast

slabs, these small mnemonic objects have variable and
conflicting meanings that flow along a continuum from personal

memento to symbol of capitalist victory in the form of novelty

 22

item. And like the slabs, these souvenirs were valued for the

signs of artistic intervention (graffiti) that functioned as

a metaphor for the desire to overcome the Wall.

Graffiti played a significant role in the public reception

of Berlin Wall fragments and in the construction of a

dichotomy between East and West embodied in the material

duality of a Wall bearing signs of individual expression on

the one side, and an officially maintained "absence" of

expression on the other. It is this false rhetorical duality,

moreover, which remains - monumentally - as the manifest

ideology of the Montreal fragment display and of many other

similar installations. Wall artefacts on display give

attention to the object, that is, pieces of the Western face

of the wall bearing graffiti, coded in terms of freedom of

expression. Wall fragments such as the Montreal piece make a

claim for the universality of the enlightenment concept of

freedom provided through liberal democracy. Such displays

place in abeyance the voices and actions of the East Germans
whose demands for socialist reform made the wall an

anachronism even before it was dismantled.

As was mentioned, the graffiti-covered Wall was by the

mid-1980s a site of aesthetic production and consumption.

Tourists not only visited the site, but produced a significant

proportion of the graffiti on the Wall's urban stretch. Since

the Western face of the border system was set back on East
 23

German territory, graffiti on the Wall conformed to the

practice of graffiti writing as defacement of property and

transgression. This particular instance of transgression,

despite its disruption of an appropriate use of the space,

found ready acceptance in the West. In his study of spatial

theory and of social practices that are "out of place," Tim

Cresswell argues that media coverage of the falling Wall

emphasized the graffiti-painted surface which for ideological

purposes represented a "desired disorder" in the face of an

authoritarian regime. Cresswell contrasts this to the

discourse surrounding the policing of graffiti in New York
City, a place that epitomizes the discrepancy of wealth and

poverty in a supposed free-market economy. He writes:

In one context graffiti is seen as a symptom of the end

of civilization, of anarchy and decaying moral values,
and in another it is a sign of a free spirit closing the
curtain on the stifling bureaucracy of Communist
authoritarianism.2

The parallel with New York City, though, goes beyond

Cresswell's brief mention of Berlin.

In the early eighties both New York and Berlin were sites

for the emergence of post-graffiti. Post-graffiti signals the

move of graffiti from its subcultural sources to the

marketplace of commercial art galleries.3 In Berlin,

2Tim Cresswell, In Place, Out of Place: Geography, Ideology,

and Transgression (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1996) 45.

30n the shift from graffiti as a "street" art to its

acceptance as "high art," see in particular, Sidney Janis,
Post-Graffiti (New York: Sidney Janis Gallery, 1983). An
 24

Christophe Bouchet and Thierry Noir's Statues of Liberty soon

became the support for Keith Haring's work, an American

graffiti artist who rapidly gained notoriety by aggressively

marketing his work. (Fig.7) What makes the Berlin Wall a

particularly odd site in terms of graffiti is that its most

notable phase comes after graffiti's subcultural vitality has

already been absorbed by the gallery system. With post­

graffiti, the social practices that distinguished graffiti-as-

crime from graffiti-as-art are dissolved. Writing at that

time, Hal Foster stated that graffiti had become a reified

form, fixed by its own code.4 Post-graffiti as an empty form
of transgression, however, is revitalized by the political

significance of the Wall. Unlike most graffiti art, which

makes its chosen site less of an issue, Berlin Wall graffiti

connotes site specificity. Emerging from the minimalist and

conceptual art movements, site specificity as a concept gains

acceptance by post—graffiti and neo-expressionist artists who

excellent source of images of Berlin Wall graffiti can be

found in Heinz J. Kuzdas, Berliner MauerKunst (Berlin:
Elefanten Press, 1990) - I would like to thank Angela Terfloth
of the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany
for providing me with a copy of this text. I would also like
to thank professor Pieter Sijpkes for the reference to a
catalogue of art works about the Berlin Wall: Maier
interpretieren Die Mauer (Berlin: Verlag Haus Am Checkpoint
Charlie, 1985). Pieter Sijpkes, Professor of Architecture,
McGill University, interview, Montreal, 20 March 1997.

*Hal Foster, Recodinqs: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics

(Seattle: Bay Press, 1985, 1993) 51-52. See also, Susan
Stewart, "'Ceci Tuera Cela': Graffiti as Crime and Art," in
John Fekete, ed. Life After Postmodernism: Essays on Value and
Culture (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987) 161-180.
 25

reference its language but deny it its critical activity. The

materialist basis to site specific works gets co-opted in Wall

art's footing in realist and modenist modes of representation

as well as in its spectacularization of the viewing process.

It has largely been agreed upon that the dominant

aesthetic style of Berlin Wall graffiti is neo-expressionism.

(i.e. Fig.8) This is not surprising since West Berlin was the
place where this art movement most clearly developed. In the

exhibition catalogue to the 1982 Zeitgeist exhibition - which

took place just a few feet from the Wall at the Martin-Gropius

Bau - Robert Rosenblum described the neo-expressionist spirit

as an overthrowing of the conceptualism that "dominated" the

1970s and its replacement with a "reckless" expressionism

"that smack[s] more of the kindergarten than of the aesthetic

laboratory.1,5 Indeed this movement was celebrated as a return

to order of sorts, dredging up many of the outworn cliches of

aesthetic autonomy and artistic genius that had been critiqued

over the years.6 In historicist art criticism, Berlin neo­

expressionism was heralded as a renewal with the spirit of

expressionism, by-passing disruptive avant-garde movements and

the theoretical insights of contemporary art. Critiquing neo-

sRobert Rosenblum cited in Christos M. Joachimides and Norman

Rosenthal , eds. Zeitgeist: International Art Exhibition Berlin
1982 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1983) 11.
6See for instance: Janet Wolff (1981, 1993); Terry Eagleton,
(1983, 1995); Victor Burgin, (1986, 1990).
 26

expressionism's acquiescence to the logic of authoritarian

conservativism, critic Craig Owens bemoaned the movement's

reductive understanding of expressionism itself and the
flippant simulation of its codes; he termed this new art
"pseudo-expressionism."7

One of Berlin neo-expressionism's more well-known group of

artists is the Moritzplatz painters, known as the "Neue Wilde"

or "violent" painters. This group included Rainer Fetting,

Helmut Middendorf, Salome and Bernd Zimmer. A 1977 poster for

an exhibition of works by Fetting depicts one of his paintings

of the Berlin Wall. The Wall, in fact, as it was depicted in

Fetting's Van Gogh and Wall, became the group's emblem.

(Fig.9) As Rosalyn Deutsche explains, the Wall was considered

by these artists to be an expression of a universal condition

and also a metaphor for the schizoid character of the

alienated urban individual.8 For a film in which Fetting

plays Van Gogh, the artist paints an illegible scribble onto

the Berlin Wall, the work's incoherence reflecting the

artist's inner psychic conflict.

In 1982, at about the same time as Fetting's performance,

American artist Jonathan Borofsky painted one of his recurring

7Craig Owens, "Honor, Power, and the Love of Women," Art in

America 71:1 (January 1983) 7-13.

eRosalyn Deutsche, "Representing Berlin: Urban Ideology and

Aesthetic Practice," in Irit Rogoff, ed. The Divided Heritage:
Themes and Problems in German Modernism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991) 327. In this study Deutsche links the
aesthetic ideology of neo-expressionism to the urban
conditions of the Kreuzberg district, the SoHo of West Berlin.
 27

archetypal symbols onto the Wall. This so-called site

specific project was created for the Zeitgeist exhibition. As

with Fetting's piece, the work deals more with essentialist

notions of the self than with the historical and political

conditions of the site. Like much neo-expressionist art,

Borofsky's Running Man also attracts attention because of its

monumental and heroic dimensions. (Fig.10) Another important

issue is the intended violence of the action. Borofsky

states:

My first choice was to blow a hole in the Wall, and I'm

telling this publicly for the first time. I consulted
some people who knew about explosives in Germany. I
thought that the most important thing I could do was to
blow a hole in the Wall and I didn't even have to take
credit for it; it didn't have to be an artistic
performance, but it was something that would be in the
paper the next day. But on further consultation it
seemed also potentially dangerous to somebody who would
be walking by the Wall; there were enough negative
things, it was a little frightening, a kind of violent
act for me. But it just seemed like I was angry enough
there to want to.
So I started putting an image on the wall. The Running
Man is that, it's a way of trying to put the hole in the
Wall but symbolically. The image itself is one of
ambiguous fear, running, tension and anxiety.’
After these first few cases of high-profile aesthetic

attention, the Wall became a site for continuous and

noteworthy graffiti interventions. But what of the taste for

Wall segments as public art? I would argue that the

investment of the obsolete with exchange value was at the

source of the graffiti artist's interest in the Wall and that

’Borofsky cited in Sandy Nairne, State of the Art: Ideas &

Images in the 1980s (London: Chatto & Windus, 1987, 1990)
51-52.
 28

this fascinated interest continues with the production and

consumption of Wall segments as ruins.

The aesthetic attacks against the Wall also conform to an

ideological confrontation which Peter Sloterdijk identifies as

a feature of the critical aspect of enlightenment rationalism.

For this author, graffiti on the Berlin Wall illustrates

ideology critique as an "inscription on the other's

defense."10 In the miscarried dialogue of ideology critique,

the discourse of the disputing party - in this case, of the

Eastern Communist regimes - can only occupy the position of

lie, error or ill will; this is labelled ideology. The

function of the rhetoric of Berlin Wall graffiti is to

proclaim the freedom of expression allowed in the West.

Fittingly, this is heralded in the language of "expressionism"

which became the aesthetic ideology of U.S. imperialism after

the Second World War.11 Historically, this type of work was

used to legitimate a limitation of the notion of freedom in

the disavowal of the contradictions and inequalities of

Western illiberal capitalism. The newly wrought neo­

expressionism constitutes a well-established feature of the

bourgeois public sphere; its exposure of the private self in

a public forum signals an acceptable form of opposition that

10Peter Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason trans. Michael

Eldred (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987) 17.
nSee Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern
Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War trans.
Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1983).
 29

reinscribes, and therefore de-politicizes, the duality of

private and public spheres.12 Individual expression does not

necessarily produce a corresponding social effectiveness, and

can therefore function as a convenient alibi for conditions of

relative freedom and equality. Individual expression is both
the condition for and the limit of liberal/illiberal

democracy.13
Both the graffiti work on the original site of the Berlin

Wall and the subsequent installation of the Montreal segment

in the CCMM are premised on the aesthetic codes of

contextualist art practice or site specificity. As critical

public art, site specificity challenged the idealist notions

of the transhistorical and universal art object. This

materialist approach to the meaning of objects was extended in

site specific works to the institutional frame or the chosen

site. As such
context was extended to encompass the individual site's
symbolic, social, and political meanings as well as the
discursive and historical circumstances within which
artwork, spectator, and site are situated.14

Contextual and situational art practices understand space as

12See Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the

Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society
trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989, 1992).
13See for instance, Andrzej Ostrowski and Karl Beveridge, "East
* West: The Depoliticization of Art," Fuse (March 1980) 140­
143 and also, Arthur Kroker and David Cook, The Postmodern
Scene: Excremental Culture in Hyper Aesthetics (Montreal: New
World Perspectives, 1986, 1991).
“Rosalyn Deutsche, "Uneven Development: Public Art in New York
City," October #47 (Winter 1988) 14.
 30

socially constructed and therefore as contingent and mutating

in a field of variegated and contestatory circumstances. The

idealist discourse of public art, however, appropriates

notions of site specificity and applies these to the

production of works that are designed to re-enchant the urban

environment. In this functionalist optic, the public, the

artwork and the city space are thought of in a frame of
reference that occludes contradictions as well as changing

meanings and uses.

The painting of neo-expressionist and post-graffiti works

on the Berlin Wall was said by its critics to be instances of

site specific work, and public art. Richard Hambleton's 1984

series of trademark menacing silhouettes, for example, were

appropriate for the Berlin Wall, creating resonances with the

military structure as the keep of soldiers. Nevertheless,

works such as these simply transferred the idealist discourse

of art to an exterior setting, failing, as Deutsche argues, to

"confront the political nature of the site or to politicise

art practice itself."15 The discrepancy between the

lsRosalyn Deutsche, "Representing Berlin," 328. In this essay

Deutsche relates the ideology of neo-expressionism to broader
social conditions such as the gentrification of the Kreuzberg
district. She describes in contrast Hans Haacke's The
Broadness of Diversity of the Ludwig Brigade (1984) and Louise
Lawler's Interesting... (1985). Distinct from the dominant
art practices found in Berlin, a 1990 exhibition titled Die
Endlichkeit der Freiheit (The Finitude of Freedom) showed site
specific works addressing the social and historical context of
the East/West border. See: Laurie Palmer, "...And the Wall
Came Tumbling Down," High Performance #53 (Spring 1991) 36-39;
David Galloway, "The New Berlin: 'I Want My Wall Back!" Art in
America (September 1991) 98-103+.
 31

aesthetic interest and political vigilance was recognized by

a group of peace activists from East Germany who in 1986

painted a white stripe across the entire graffiti section of

the Wall between Mariannenplatz and Potsdamer Platz - the

sections closest to art galleries and studios. (Fig.11)

Unwittingly perhaps, this action had more in common with

critical contextual work than the hyped neo-expressionist Wall

art. What the white stripe signalled was the need for a

critical relationship to representation which seeks to

activate public space as a site of dialogue and participation,

a relationship that is more difficult to imagine when we are

presented with a public monument such as the Montreal

fragment. ’

The Montreal fragment was a donation of the Federal

Republic of Germany presented to the city in 1992. After

lengthy deliberation concerning a suitable location for the

object, the city's 'Service de la culture,' under the now

defunct CIDEC ('Commission d'initiative et de developpement

culturel' ), chose the site of the 'ruelle des Fortifications'

in the CCMM.16 It was installed in 1994 and remains in the

16Helene Thibodeau, Agente de developpement culturel, Service

de la culture, Ville de Montreal, Montreal, interview, 9
November 1995. Archival file #C920022/Mur de Berlin contains
documents pertaining to the management of the Wall fragment by
the 'Service de la culture. ' This file was made available to
me for consultation; please refer to the Appendix for a
detailed chronology of the installation of the object.
Note that CIDEC was created in 1987 by the City in response to
 32

city's public art collection. Due to the problem of graffiti

in terms of city maintenance, and in order to emphasize a

solemn commemorative function, CIDEC insisted that the

fragment be approached as an artefact and not an art object to

be installed contextually and aesthetically. The emphasis on

history in this case, however, differs from the motives of the

painters of the white stripe. The Montreal fragment in its

present context is hypostatized in a fixed museological

manner. The avoidance of aesthetic issues seems in a part a

desire to allow for the broadest interpretational breadth.

Two interpretation panels have been added to the display.

These briefly mention the conditions under which the city
received the gift, the reasons for the construction of the

Berlin Wall, Wall graffiti, the fall of the Wall, a list of

important dates, and a list of people who died while

attempting to cross the Wall. Installed directly on the base

at the back of the fragment is a short poem by German author

Fritz Grasshoff.

In comparison with other installations of monumental pre­

cast Wall slabs, the Montreal display is conceptually

rigorous; its captioning strategy underwrites the 'Service de

la culture''s desire to privilege certain readings over

initiatives by the Montreal business community. It was

devised to prepare the city for the 1992 350th anniversary.
Its projects were to be directed by the municipal government
in partnership with the private sector. CIDEC was dismantled
in the mid-1990s. The 'Service de la culture' now maintains
CIDEC's principle functions.
 33

others.17 In an early study of the implications of receiving

a Wall segment in Montreal, a cultural officer described how

the multiple and contradictory meanings of the object produce

a cacaphonic communi cational barrier of high intensity; this,

the study stated, does not imply a dialogue.18 In light of

the segment’s chosen site, the ’Service’ hired a specialist to

devise an interpretational concept that would restrict

undesired readings and privilege other, specific meanings.

The structuring of interpretation in terms of captioning

strategy was used as a solution to the segment's volatile and

multivalent significance.19

17To my knowledge, the only other North American display which

parallels the Montreal installation in its interpretive rigour
is that of the Newseum in Arlington, Virginia. This museum is
dedicated to the history of media and broadcast news. In its
adjoining Freedom Park, three monumental slabs are installed
along with a large interpretation panel. This display alludes
to the role played by news media in Cold War detente. A
headless statue of Lenin accompanies the Wall fragments. This
biased view can be challenged by the fact that news reports
from the West alienated East European viewers and made them
aware of problems such as crime and unemployment which
afflicted capitalist countries. As such, the news media may
equally have perpetuated the division between East and Western
blocks.
ie"Le mur de Berlin: Analyse de la signification de 1'artefact
urbain et reflexions sur de possibles parametres d' integration
dans un lieu Montrealais," August 1992, Archival file
#C920022/Mur de Berlin. For studies of the changing meanings
of the Wall, see: Mary Beth Stein, "The Politics of Humour:
The Berlin Wall in Jokes and Graffiti," Western Folklore #48
(April 1989) 85-108; Michael S. Bruner, "Symbolic Uses of the
Berlin Wall, 1961-1989," Communication Quarterly 37:4 (Fall
1989) 319-328.
19An early description of the function of the caption was
described by Walter Benjamin in his "Short History of
Photography," trans. Phil Patton, Artforum (February 1977)
46-51.
 34

By emphasizing the interpretative management of the

meaning of the Montreal fragment display, there are a number

of critical pitfalls which I do not want to imply. The first

has to do with the concept of a proper form of commemoration.

In his study of the preservation and consumption of the Berlin

Wall, Frederick Baker argues that the methods of preserving

the Wall as object and as memory must be diverse, reflecting

the multiple meanings of the Wall itself.20 I am in agreement

with Baker's conclusion and would like to insist on the always

partial and incomplete nature of representation and the

various social and political practices that these suggest.

Secondly, I would add Deutsche's critique of the idea of an

appropriate site for any work of public art. To muddy the

distinction between art object and context, she argues, is to

reaffirm the hierarchical division between the two and to

reinscribe the notion of a "pure art experience."21 In

keeping with Deutsche's suggestion, this essay seeks in no way

to critique nor to commend the 'Service' for its choice of

location. What I would assert, however, is that the final

choice of site and placement of the object do have

implications and produce meanings that are related to the

20Frederick Baker, "The Berlin Wall: Production, Preservation

and Consumption of a 20th-century Monument," Antiquity Vol.67
(December 1993) 731.
21Rosalyn Deutsche, "Alternative Space," in Brian Wallis, ed.
If You Lived Here.... The City in Art, Theory and Social
Activism: A Project by Martha Rosler (Seattle: Bay Press,
1991) 49.
 35

material and historical reality of the space.

What is equally crucial to my argument is the

understanding that public monuments like the Montreal Wall

segment are representations inscribed in social space; their

contexts constitute spaces of representation which construct

norms of appropriate spatial practice, their representational

features assemble preferred readings. This, however, does not

preclude various appropriations and interpretations of the

monument's meaning. James Young's work effectively develops

this problematic. He writes:

On the one hand, official agencies are in position to
shape memory explicitly as they see fit, memory that best
serves a national interest. On the other hand, once
created, memorials take on lives of their own, often
stubbornly resistant to the state's original intentions.
In some cases, memorials created in the image of a
state's ideals actually turn around to recast these
ideals in the memorial's own image. New generations
visit memorials under new circumstances and invest
them with new meanings. The result is an evolution in
the memorial's significance, generated in the new times
and company in which it finds itself.22
I would also agree with Young in asserting that this study of

the Montreal fragment is dependent on my own narrative

reconstruction and the contingencies of the historical moment

in which I have written this work.

In opening up this section onto the following chapters I

would like to reinsert the notion that the CCMM display has
specific connotations that are related to the history of its
construction, use and consequent consumption. These

22James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials

and Meaning (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993) 3.
 36

connotations become sharper when we consider that the site of

the 'ruelle des Fortifications' within the CCMM is a recent
instance of the fabrication of a pseudo-public space, created

with the use of public funds for the benefit of private

interests. Given that the CCMM is one of the hundreds of

World Trade Centres around the globe and that it is situated

in a newly gentrified sector of the city on the historical

site of the city's eighteenth-century fortifications, I do not

consider the Montreal display to be an innocuous and innocent

gesture of commemoration. The implications of these

specificities will be examined in the pages below. It is

crucial that contextual factors be brought to bear on an

interpretation of the Wall display. In the following chapter

I will examine some of the aspects of contemporary critical

public art and the work that artists have produced dealing
with the issues concerning public monuments at the time of the

East European revolutions. The debates and problems

encountered in the destruction and preservation of Stalinist

statuary, for instance, greatly resembles the course of events

surrounding the dismantling and consumption of Berlin Wall

segments. Of central concern in this discussion is the

construction of the "public" in liberal discourse and the

educational imperative behind the notion of heritage.

 CHAPTER 2

Current public art and aesthetic considerations of the

city function quite often within a logic of preservation and

commemoration termed "heritage." No singular concept has more

forcefully influenced the reception of the public monument in

modern capitalist culture. Heritage produces two predominant

representational and temporal forms: the first, the preserved

monument or building, arrested in its state of decay or

perhaps returned to a pristine condition; and the second, the

new monument and public artwork which, under a pretext of

sensitivity towards the vernacular and the urban tissue,

incorporates signs of history and memory into its

communicative, mediatized structure.

Since the 1960s at least, the conservation and

preservation movement has gained mounting and often

unquestioned acceptance. The unconditional imperative towards

conservation, argues Frangoise Choay, short-circuits the

analysis of our own motivations and criteria for selection.1

This transparency of the notion of heritage, she believes,

masks an opacity which frustrates our understanding of both

the historical and the contemporary. In her articles on

gentrification and urban revitalization, Rosalyn Deutsche

decries the "preservationist aesthetic, " a predominant feature

of postmodernism, for its idealist and historicizing narrative

’Frangoise Choay, "A propos de culte et de monuments," in

Aloxs Riegl, Le Culte moderne des monuments: son essence et sa
qenese trans. Daniel Wieczorek (Paris: Editions de minuit,
1984) 10-11.
 38

of culture. Acts of preservation are "ideologically

motivated," she insists, "determined by particular interests

and investments".2 The motivated interests of these acts are

introduced as common sense and as public utility; furthermore,

normalizations are generalized through the useful concepts of

idealist aesthetics.

Alongside the movement for conservation and urban renewal,

and following its international institutionalization, we have

witnessed a mounting interest in public art. With the

integration of art and architecture, the radically new museum

art of the 1960s exited the white cube and. entered the city

square. At the same time, the dematerialization of the art

object produced new forms of aesthetic creation including

performance, conceptual art, earthworks, installation, and

site specificity. Much of this art was intentionally

ephemeral. By the 1980s, the new public art often expressed

some of the political and social issues brought forth by these

art movements, but in officially sanctioned and permanent

forms. The criteria of selection in these instances, such as

accessibility, decorative value, integration and use, follow

in the tradition mentioned by Deutsche of modernist aesthetics

and functionalism. But today's public art is all too often

"public" merely by virtue of its spatial designation, outside,

on the street or in the park. As Canadian artist and theorist

2Rosalyn Deutsche, "Krzysztof Wodiczko's Homeless Projection

and the Site of Urban Revitalization," October #38 (Fall 1986)
79.
 39

Mark Lewis states,

The "idea" of public art is currently enjoying a lot of
attention by art curators and museums. Usually, their
idea of being public means literally placing the work
"out on the street." Not only is this a very narrow
understanding of what forms publicity can take, but by
circumventing any critical discussion of the role of art
in creating a public and its historical projects in this
regard, such a move often unwittingly re-duplicates the
very division of labour and systems of control, etc.,
that it ostensibly sets out to challenge and undermine.3

Changes in how we think of the city and of public space should

directly affect the changes in how we conceive the collective.

I would like to contrast these thoughts on heritage with

artist Krzysztof Wodiczko's concept of critical public art.

There are important differences between critical public art

and a public art based in a tradition of idealist aesthetics.

These differences affect the character of the artist1s role in

society, notions of the public, and conditions for viewing or

experiencing works. Wodiczko's critique of capitalist culture

and the liberal rationalist concept of aesthetic autonomy

focuses on the urban public realm and the dominant

understanding of progress and social unity. The artist

maintains a distinction between critical public art and the

"art in public places" approach of urbanists and

administrators. The latter type reflects the conditions of
social space within a capitalist social organization - its

idealist quality applies to art as it does to the general

perception of city forms as much as to social relations. In

3Mark Lewis, "What Is To Be Done," Parachute #61 (Jan/Feb/Mar

1991) 36.
 40

a sort of Nietzschean "active forgetting," the discourse of

modern capitalist development presents a unified and

unproblematic image of social harmony.4 A public art

conforming to the idealist notion of aesthetic autonomy

underwrites this vision of the built environment. In

contrast, Wodiczko proposes a critical public art. He writes:

To believe that the city can be affected by open-air

public art galleries or enriched by outdoor curatorial
adventures (through state and corporate purchases,
lendings and displays) is to commit an ultimate
philosophical and political error. For, since the 18th
century at least, the city has operated as a grand
aesthetic curatorial project.... To attempt to
"enrich" this powerful, dynamic art gallery (the city
public domain) with "artistic art" collections or
commissions - all in the name of the public - is to
decorate the city with a pseudocreativity irrelevant to
urban space and experience alike; it is also to
contaminate this space and experience with the most
pretentious and patronizing bureaucratic-aesthetic
environmental pollution.
The aim of critical public art is neither a happy self­
exhibition nor a passive collaboration with the grand
gallery of the city, its ideological theater and
architectural-social system. Rather, it is an engagement
in strategic challenges to the city structures and
mediums that mediate our everyday perception of the
world....s
I wonder, though, just how "artistic art" comes to "pollute"

urban space. For surely, if these aesthetic projects

represent specific and not universal interests, they all the

40n Friedrich Nietzsche's distinction between monumental and

critical history, see his text, The Use and Abuse of History
trans. Adrian Collins (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill
Company, Inc., 1949, 1957).

5Krzysztof Wodiczko, "Strategies of Public Address: Which

Media, Which Publics?" in Hal Foster, ed. Discussions in
Contemporary Art 1 (Seattle: Bay Press, 1987) 41-42.
 41

same share in the collective investment in the notion of what

is public. At the root of this problematic is the

Enlightenment view of politics and aesthetics, categories that

while both universal, were rationalized as separate and

irreconcilable spheres. The aesthetic should have stayed

"inside," in the place of inferiority and subjectivity. The

polis, or the public sphere, was to be the site of ethics and

of political debate. Now, if "aesthetic art" can come to

pollute the city, it is in championing a partisan position -

that is, in championing a politics which seeks to universalize

its logic of exchange and equivalence, and which erases

differences. In this ideologically naturalized environment,

critical public art can only seem out of place. As Habermas

noted, the German term ' rasonnement, ' or criticality, is

simultaneously an "invocation of reason" and "malcontent

griping."6 It is an instance of the critical spirit defamed

by bourgeois publicity. Public space in the age of scientific

progress (without a notion of social progress) limits and

quarantines criticality as an archaic and disruptive model of

communication.

Part of the problematic of the liberal tradition is the

question of representation, a political doctrine that seeks to
subsume individual interests within public discourse. The

6Yiirgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public

Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society trans.
Thomas Burger (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989, 1992) 27.
 42

apparent contradiction, which becomes the ground for socialist

critique, is that the public realm also functions as a vehicle

for the guarantee and protection of private (property)

interests. Political and aesthetic education are proffered as

means for the integration of the "public" into the rank and

file of a well-informed citizenry. As a feature of the

landscape of urban culture, "public art" has had the task of

mending the philosophical fault line between the private and

the public - and here, in contradistinction to museum and

gallery art - from the side of the collective rather than the

subjective. Despite its pretensions to universality, public

art nevertheless expresses the consciousness and desires of

particular groups or individuals, even though this is glossed

over by its rhetorical function.

In the Western liberal tradition, the public sphere was

originally the realm of wealthy men, and in particular, the

property-owning subject. Excluded from this category were

women, slaves and servcints, children, foreigners and the poor;
in other words, the majority of the population. The history

of liberalism and of representative democracy, with the

corresponding ideals of freedom and individual human rights,

is the story of the struggle for the consummation of the

category of the public. But the abstract public realm has

never and cannot account in all instances for the

differentiated needs of particular groups or individuals.

"Actually existing democracy," as Stuart Hall states, "depends

 43

on a unified vision of the public which represses differences

and conflicts at the social and political level."7

How then, can the "public" be salvaged as a safeguard

against undemocratic practices, while at the same time

representing the needs of diverse and competing interests?8

Part of the problem lies in the rhetoric of public

representation, a philosophical and pragmatic approach which

ignores the conflicts that underwrite the control of social

space. Deutsche argues that the articulation of democracy has

two conditions. The first necessitates the elimination of the

essentialist understanding of the public as a singular and

fixed category which should be conceptualized instead as

"continuously emerging and mutating in a public space." The

second condition requires that the state apparatus be

distinguished from an open public realm from which the power

of the state arises.9

Deutsche's conception of the public resembles the radical

democracy advocated by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau.

7Stuart Hall draws on Ernesto Laclau's critique of "actually

existing democracy" in his writings on Thatcherism: see
Rosalyn Deutsche, "Art and Public Space: Questions of
Democracy," Social Text #33 (1992) 35-36.
eAn area of analysis which will not be developed in this study
is Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge's study of oppositional
"public spheres of production." See their collaborative text,
The Public Sphere and Experience trans. Peter Labanyi et al.
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).

’Rosalyn Deutsche, "Excerpt from 'Art and Public Space:

Questions of Democracy'," in Judith Mastai, ed. Art in Public
Places: A Vancouver Casebook (Vancouver: Vancouver Art
Gallery, 1993) 31.
 44

Based on Gramsci's concept of hegemony and Derridean

deconstruction, radical democracy refutes the totalizations of

Marxism, while at the same time ensuring political vigilance

and maintaining a critical engagement with notions of power,

history, and politics. (Post-marxist criticism is predicated

on a simplification of marxism's original anti-orthodoxy.)10

According to Mouffe, "the political community should be

conceived as a discursive surface and not as an empirical

fact."11 Unlike the liberal conception of public citizenship,

within Laclau and Mouffe's social logic of contingency one's

political identity is engaged in a number of different

communities. While the distinction between public and private

is maintained, the one cannot be privileged over the other.

Laclau and Mouffe's theory of articulation offers

pragmatic modalities for the construction of socialist

coalition politics that do not trample over specificities of

identity. Their work, however, is based on formalist theories

of signification and meaning that evade a historically

grounded understanding of hegemony. This critique is put

forth in Rosemary Hennessy's discussion of materialist

feminism and the politics of discourse theories. In response

10Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist

Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London:
Verso, 1985, 1994). See also Angela McRobbie, "Post-Marxism
and Cultural Studies," in her book of essays Postmodernism and
Popular Culture (London: Routledge, 1994) 44-60.
“Chantal Mouffe, "Citizenship and Political Identity," October
#61 (Summer 1992) 30.
 45

to Laclau and Mouffe's view of struggle as an effect of

signification, she writes:

Explaining antagonism as an effect of the instability of
signification mystifies the relationship between
signification and the commodity, between alienation at
the level of cultural meaning and at the level of
economic and political relations. It reifies in the
processes of signification the highly mediated relation
between discursive and nondiscursive practices, in other
words, what is at stake in the history of struggles over
words.12
Hennessy proposes critical democracy and a continuation of the

work of ideology critique "as a mode of reading that

recognizes the contesting interests at stake in discursive

constructions of the social."13 The author’s model insists
on a committed position within social analysis and takes

feminism as its point of departure.

To acknowledge this view of contesting interests and

oppositional public spheres is to also challenge the notion of

representation and of public art. As Deutsche holds, if the

"public" is subject to appropriation, then the "concrete

mechanisms" of power of private identities and interests must

be perceived. This is to emphasize, as Hennessy mentions, the

marxist insistence on the historical specificity of contents

as much as on categories of thought. What sort of public art,

then, would be appropriate to critical democracy or other

political models that recognize a multiplicity of publics

12Rosemary Hennessy, Materialist Feminism and, the Politics of

Discourse (New York: Routledge, 1993) 63.
13Hennessy, 15.
 46

within an analytic of history or hegemony? If the public is

understood as a field of different and competing interests,

will a viable public art, as Diana Nemiroff suggests, be a

critical, anti-monumental, impermanent and marginal one?14

Or, alternately, are the already numerous works dedicated to

specific communities and local heroes already fulfilling this

function of accountability? In a typically post-structuralist

capitulation, Mark Lewis reviews this problem of

representation. He writes,

As soon as anyone or any group begins to speak on behalf

of a given community what is revealed precisely, often
because of the need to keep it as a repressed, is an
acknowledgement of the contamination of public rights by
private interests. This is not to say that the latter is
alien to the aesthetic experience of the public sphere;
on the contrary it is the dialectic of public and private
which makes the experience of the public realm so
significant, so radically public. If we grasp this in
advance and refuse the temptation to believe that these
conflicting interests can be reconciled, then we will be
one step closer to releasing public art from its own
obligatory interest.15

I would like to open this next section on revolutionary

history with a consideration of the authority of context. The

descriptions of artists' works that follow deal with public
art or monuments and the contextual as well as material issues

14Diana Nemiroff, Melvin Charney, Krzysztof Wodiczko: Canada,

XLII Biennale di Venezia 1986 (Ottawa: National Gallery of
Canada, 1986) 8.

lsMark Lewis, "Public Interest," in George Baird and Mark

Lewis, eds. Queues, Rendezvous, Riots: Questioning the Public
in Art and Architecture (Banff: Walter Phillips Gallery, 1994)
126.
 47

that disrupt the ideological coherence of the public

monument's communicative function. The study of such works

provides a frame of references for the evaluation of the

Montreal Wall installation as a work of aesthetic

recontextualization. Let us begin with an appropriate figure,

a statue of George Washington. (Fig.12) The statue is a 1917

bronze replica of a 1788 marble sculpture by the French

sculptor, Houdon. In a project by the American artist Michael

Asher, the statue was recontextualized, thereby creating for

the viewer, a subtle "before and after" effect. (Fig.13) The

artistic strategy of the project is an instance of what Asher

described as situational aesthetics:

an aesthetic system that juxtaposes predetermined
elements occurring within the institutional framework,
that are recognizable and identifiable to the public
because they are drawn from the institutional context
itself. "16

For the 73rd American Exhibition held at the Art Institute

of Chicago in 1979, Asher had the George Washington statue

moved from the front of the Institute’s Michigan avenue
entrance to an appropriate historical context inside the
museum. The statue was placed in Gallery 219, an eighteenth­

century period room containing paintings and decorative arts

from 1786 to 1795. Asher describes the effect of this

recontextualization:

As a decorative object disrupting the museum's exterior

16Michael Asher cited in Claude Ginz, "Michael Asher and the

Transformation of 'Situational Aesthetics’ ," October #66 (Fall
1993) 113.
 48

architectural continuity, the sculpture had undergone

changes to its own surface [it had a weathered outdoor
appearance]. Once it was reintroduced into its original
period context, however, it disrupted the continuity of
the interior: in its outdoor context the sculpture by
Jean-Antoine Houdon seemed to have had a different use or
function and had acquired material features which now
conflicted with its setting as an object of high art in
a well-guarded museum interior. In the interior, the
sculpture of [Washington] no longer had the appearance of
being a public monument, which it possessed while
installed on its granite pedestal outside the museum.
Stripped of its monumentality, it could be compared
stylistically to other artifacts in Gallery 219 and could
be observed almost exclusively in aesthetic and art-
historical terms.17

Without going further into Asher’s reasons for this operation,

I would simply suggest its pertinence as a template for the

consideration of the effects of context and discourses in the

understanding and differentiation of aesthetic and political

forms.

What Asher executed as a conceptual art project is in fact

a process that was not so easily conceived and executed at the

time of the French Revolution. Under the "Ancien Regime," art

was understood as a display of sovereignty, or in Habermas'

terms, "representative publicity" - an extension of the King's
body. In the years after 1790, feudal monuments, symbols and
insignia were routinely destroyed or broken down for
materials. An essay by Daniel Hermant describes how in the

context of a return to order in the course of the Revolution,

Republican parties (opposed to Royalists) wished to somehow

17Michael Asher in Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, ed. Michael Asher:

Writings 1973-1983 on Works 1969-1979 (Halifax: The Press of
the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1983) 208.
 49

distance themselves from the destruction wrought by the

"populace" during the Revolution. At the same time, there

emerged a movement in favour of the establishment of National

Museums which laboured to preserve the country's cultural

heritage. This would include monuments of aesthetic worth.
In this revolutionary atmosphere, and for the first time in

modern history, a discourse on vandalism was constructed; it

counterpoised vandalism to Enlightenment. Despite

denunciations and calls for arrests, few "vandals" were

convicted. This was not surprising since the Revolutionary

Legislative Assembly had earlier declared:

It is the manifest will of the people that no monument
continue to exist that recalls the reign of tyranny...
the statues in public squares in Paris will be taken away
and statues in honor of liberty will replace them.18

At the time of the call for the preservation of monuments and

for the apprehension of offenders, police reports reflected
the undeveloped state of the concept of vandalism in the

public imaginary. One report read:

We are flooded with complaints which state that patriots

are offended by the sight of monuments erected by
despotism in the years of slavery, monuments that
obviously should not be left standing under the rule of
liberty and equality.19

Control over the realm of the arts, as Hermant argues, was but

one aspect of the broader suppression of popular initiative at

this time (9 Thermidore) . In the form of the Commission on

18Cited in Lewis, "What Is To Be Done," 31.

"Cited in Daniel Hermant, "Destruction and Vandalism During

the French Revolution," in Baird and Lewis, 118.
 50

Monuments and the Temporary Commission on the Arts, scholarly

discourse opposed popular iconoclasm. By specifying the

technical criteria for evaluating art objects, and by

affirming art's independence from society, scholars such as

the Abbe Gregoire argued that the preservation of monuments

could serve a national and pedagogical function, if only by

negative example as reminders of tyranny.

Two related conclusions can be drawn from these events.

The first is Hermant's contention that the discourse on

vandalism, which was put into effect as a conspiracy against

the goals of the Revolution, was actually contrary to the

Revolution's ideals. He writes:

Faced with the reality of Republican destruction, the
vandal conspiracy made it possible to maintain the
fiction of an ideology, that of the 'lumieres'; it was a
bourgeois reading of revolutionary events (for the
'lumieres' were not neutral).20
National heritage, then, did not represent the interests of

all Republicans. Paradoxically, the coming into being of

national patrimony was linked to the construction of a

discourse on vandalism.21 Although this created a division

between the people and the dominant bourgeois class, it was

progressive inasmuch as it severed the notion of heritage from

natural birthright. Heritage became historical. Conservation

efforts at this time depended on impending and actual

20Hermant, 120-121.
21Anthony Vidler, discussed in Lewis, "What Is To Be Done,"
31-32.
 51

destruction.
A second conclusion can be surmised. Gregoire's desire to

preserve monuments and works of art as "permanent reminders of

tyranny" expressed a fundamental contradiction between the

monument as a permanent reminder on the one hand, and the

monument as something whose meaning had just undergone, and

could therefore undergo, changes of historical proportions.

As Lewis claims,
Gregoire was beginning to articulate a sense of the
discontinuity which overdetermines the symbolic realm and
how that discontinuity would always already be part of
any monument's history. It is a discontinuity that
ultimately inscribes within the work a built-in
obsolescence; and it is this built-in obsolescence which
will ultimately allow the work to be rescued by a museum
where it will also take its place in the national
history of a country, its patrimony of permanence.22

Enlightened revolutionaries such as the Abbe Gregoire

articulated a concept of conservation that synthesized the

values of instruction, patriotism, aesthetics and heritage.

As the concept of history itself was developed in the

nineteenth century, entire historical periods, styles and

peoples, such as the Goths and the Vandals, gained scholarly

favour. It is at this time that the idealist notion of

aesthetics was consolidated.

Another revolutionary event, the Paris Commune of 1871,

brings to light the continuing struggle over public symbols.
In this case the Vendome Column, monument to Napoleon and his

Grand Army, became a focus of revolutionary attention. A

22Lewis, "What Is To Be Done," 32.

 52

Commune decree stated:

Considering that the imperial column at the Place Vendome
is a monument to barbarism, a symbol of brute force and
glory, an affirmation of militarism, a negation of
international law, a permanent insult to the vanquished
by the victors, a perpetual assault on one of the three
great principles of the French Republic, Fraternity, it
is thereby decreed: Article One: The column at the Place
Vendome will be abolished.23

After the monument's destruction, the French poet Catulle

Mendes decried: "It wasn't enough for you, in a word, to have

destroyed the present and compromised the future, you still

want to annihilate the past!"24 For the Communards, however,

it was the Column itself, as a permanent insult, which

destroyed history by freezing time, and by converting

hierarchy into an ahistorical ideal.25 However, as Linda

Nochlin has demonstrated, the Commune also quickly established

an Art Commission charged with the protection of heritage.
Even in a situation in which social hierarchy was symbolically

challenged, humanist values maintained their ideological

power. In 1871 as in the 1790s, the ideals of the revolution

were to make humanist values available to more people.26

By the time of the Commune, the concepts of conservation

23Cited in Kristin Ross, The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud

and the Paris Commune (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1988) 5.

24Mendes cited in Ross, 5-6.

25Ross, 7.

26Linda Nochlin, "Museums cind Radicals: A History of

Emergencies," in Brian О'Doherty, ed. Museums in Crisis (New
York: George Braziller, 1972) 20.
 53

and historicism had taken hold. Figures such as Viollet-le-

Duc (1814-1879) championed a preservationist aesthetic which

sought not only to restore buildings of historic significance,

but also the virtues that they were perceived to embody. For

the Viennese art historian, Alois Riegl (1858-1905), the

practice of preservation represented an amalgamation of

newness-value and historical value. These terms were but a

few of the classifications included in Riegl's 1903 study,

"The Modern Cult of Monuments." Despite the fact that he

wrote this as a preface to a legislative proposal for the

protection of historic monuments in the Austro-Hungarian

Empire, the study challenged many of the unwritten laws of

conservation. Riegl distinguished intentional from

unintentional monuments. Unintentional monuments, brought to

the fore by age-value, historical value or relative art-value,

were said to be given their meaning by contemporary society.
None of these values were absolute and one type could be in
competition with another. Although any given historic

monument was seen as irreplaceable, something such as age­

value could rightfully stand in the way of its preservation
and allow it to "submit to incessant transformation and
violent destruction".27 Use-value, newness-value, and

historical value, on the other hand, are more interested in

the original status of the monument and may seek to return it

27Alois Riegl, "The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and

Origin," in Kurt W. Forster, ed. Oppositions (Fall 1982) 32.
 54

to this condition.

Riegl’s theoretical insight is that the meaning of a

monument does not reside immutably in a singular past, as both

Viollet-le-Duc and the Communards would have held it to, but

is rather transitory and contradictory, relative to the

present. As Frangoise Choay asserts, Riegl demonstrates that

on both a theoretical and a practical level, the problematic

of destruction/conservation cannot be settled once and for

all, and furthermore, that the what and how of conservation

never entails just one solution, but many alternative

solutions, each of relative pertinence.28 Another insight of

Riegl's study is that it is the establishment of criteria to

help define unintentional monuments that allows them to be

recontextualized and as such preserved as heritage.

The problematic of destruction/conservation that was

registered in a unique way in the aftermath of the French

Revolution surfaces once again but differently in Walter

Benjamin's "Theses on the Philosophy of History." Benjamin

reads the two contradictory movements of destruction/

conservation in dialectical images, images which nonetheless

are subject to the course of historical transformation. As

with Riegl, Benjamin challenges historicism's view of the past

as eternal and unchanging. Thesis number V reads: "every

image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one

28Choay, 17.
 55

of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably.1,29

His concern, however, was not so much with preservation but

with redemption.

Benjamin's writings on historical materialism and his

allegorical strategy of "exploding history's continuum" is

central to the work of contemporary artists Krzysztof Wodiczko

and Mark Lewis. Their work is examined below. A few words on

Benjamin, however, are included in order to structure the

argument I am making in this chapter. Benjamin was

particularly averse to tradition in the form of heritage. In

her reading of Benjamin's unpublished Arcades Project, Susan

Buck-Morss examines this question of conservation. She

suggests that although Benjamin was not in favour of a

conservative preservation for its own sake, he nevertheless

opposed the destruction of the past produced by political and

economic interests and which was made possible by the modern

technical capacities for destruction. For instance, Buck-
Morss discusses how Benjamin did not criticize the Paris
Commune for the damage they wrought on the city of Paris, but
rather, for "falsely equating the city's destruction with that

of the social order."30 "For him", she writes,

the political choice was not between historically
preserving Paris and modernizing it, but between

2,Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in

Illuminations, 255.
30Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin
and the Arcades Project (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989, 1993)
316.
 56

destruction of the historical record - which alone makes

revolutionary consciousness possible - and destruction in
remembrance of this record. In short, it was a choice
between obliterating the past, or actualizing it.31

Buck-Morss further examines how this relates to urban renewal

projects which "attempted to create social utopias by changing

the arrangement of buildings and streets - objects in space -

while leaving social arrangements intact."32 This for

Benjamin was a symptom of the deep sleep that the nineteenth

century had fallen into. In the early stages of the

Industrial Revolution, and after the July Revolution of 1830,

the newly victorious bourgeoisie begins to show an ambivalence

toward its own concept of utopia. At that moment, progress is

affirmed in terms of positivist science and technology, but no

longer in terms of society. Social progress is then equated

with technological development. This is the historical

continuum that Benjamin wishes to explode. His method was to

see in allegory an antidote to the mythic, natural state in

which the present is shrouded. Benjamin was attentive to what
he called the now-time of revolutionary moments, for at such

times of danger, the illuminated past places the conjuncture

of the present in a critical position. This now-time is akin
to the allegorical procedure which "brings to consciousness

the nonidentity between signs and meaning."33 Thus for

31Buck-Morss, 316-317.

32Buck-Morss, 89.

33Buck-Morss, 224.
 57

Benjamin, knowledge of the past entails a redemption of its

remaining fragments.

Allegorical methods have been used by a number of

contemporary artists as a means to question not only the

idealist construction of the art object, but also the

formalist aestheticization of social contexts and spaces.34

Krzysztof Wodiczko's projection works, for instance, self­

consciously actualize Benjamin's notion that the historical

materialist "'blasts apart' the continuum of history,

constructing 'historical objects' in a politically explosive

constellation of past and present, as a 'lightening flash' of

truth. "3S I will limit this section to the examination of

Wodiczko's 1990 projection onto the Lenin monument in

Leninplatz, East Berlin. (Fig.14)

Since the early 1980s, Wodiczko has projected images onto
architectural bodies and monuments. His basic strategy is to

project images that resonate with contemporary significance.

The visual montage contests the idea that the structures

possess a universal and unchanging symbolic meaning. Rather,

it demonstrates how the transformative nature of symbols can

34See for example, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, "Allegorical

Procedures: Appropriations in Contemporary Art," Artforum 21:1
(September 1982) 43-56. - ’

3SBuck-Morss, 241.
 58

be used and manipulated in different circumstances.36

Wodiczko's work takes a dialogical approach, to audience and to

art's relation to everyday life. It seeks to affect the

normative understanding of public monuments as much as it does

complacent dismissals of the critique of the society of the

spectacle (while critically infiltrating spectacle).

Wodiczko's projection projects make use of popular images

that have a current, if fleeting, meaning and value. They are

'au courant,' denoting their shock value and relevance to the

viewers at a particular time and place. The paradoxical

givenness of these images is on a par with the significance of

the monuments which the public is also expected to readily

understand. The projections, however, function as counter­

images which reveal the architecture's activity of ideological

projection, its actual symbolic purpose which is often

subsumed under the cloak of a transparent functionality. The

projections' supplemental sign-value make visible the original

symbolic meanings of the monuments by opposing or enhancing

them, by making them contemporary, or by suggesting their

connotative implications in other terms. By piling allegory

on top of allegory, the projections make the monuments speak

otherwise, once again.

For the East Berlin projection, the artist brought the

image of the Russian leader to date by superimposing onto the

36Rosalyn Deutsche, "Homeless Projection and the Site of Urban

'Revitalization'," October #38 (Fall 1986) 66.
 59
body of the statue a shopping-cart filled with Western

consumer goods which had become available to East Europeans

after the social revolutions of 1989. The humour that is

produced by the work is underwritten by the incongruence

between the sedimented understanding of East and West. It is

also produced by the fact that it is an iconoclastic gesture

against a once protected, if reviled, figure, a sort of wish

image. It is equally an outcome of an awareness of the real

poverty of the Polish shoppers who purchase goods in the West

for resale at higher prices back home. After public debates,

the Stalinist statue of Leninplatz was dismantled.37

The wry humour with which Wodiczko treats this particular

subject is telling since the destruction of the monuments to

communism was met here in the West with very little concern.
Rarely did news reports mention anything about conservation or

about vandalism. This was perhaps due to the dubious quality

of socialist realist statuary, but most likely, the symbolic

meaning of the destruction pre-empted reflections on issues of
style or aesthetics.

Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, two Russian emigre

artists living in New York, responded to the destruction of

communist monuments with a mixture of seriousness tinged with

irony. Komar & Melamid are the forerunners of a Russian art

37Phil Freshman, Krzysztof Wodiczko: Public Address

(Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1992) 158.
 60

movement known as "Sots Art," a play on the terms Socialist

Realism (the official aesthetic style of the former Soviet

Union, inaugurated by Stalin) and Pop Art.38 Sots Art is to

Socialist Realism, what Pop art is to consumer culture. In

each case the given culture is inundated with visual slogans

which the artist both accepts and rejects.
In may of 1992, and after the destruction of countless

Socialist Realist Monuments, Komar & Melamid published a call

for submissions for artists to make proposals on how to

transform the monuments to totalitarianism. A letter was sent

to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, explaining the concept and

requesting the temporary installation (display and

preservation) of monuments that by 1993 had remained intact.

Their open call to artists was titled "What Is To Be Done With

Monumental Propaganda?" It read:

From the time of the revolution of 1917 to the advent of

glasnost, each new regime has attempted to destroy the
monuments commemorating their predecessors - Brezhnev,
Kruschev, Stalin. The destruction continues today, and
any effort to save, unchanged, Russia's remaining
Socialist Realist monuments would surely be seen as an
attempt to preserve a totalitarian tradition. The time
has come to stop this destruction! We have had enough of
revolutions! Historic monuments are a non-renewable
resource. Instead of further destruction we propose
transformation through art.
Fate has provided a unique opportunity. It would seem a
shame to miss this chance. Creative interventions by
artists from around the world could make it possible to
re-configure the content of existing monuments while
preserving them. Moscow could become a phantasmagoric

38It is my contention that Berlin Wall fragments on display can

be examined within the parameters of Sots Art. Please refer
to the bibliography for writings on this art movement.
 61

garden of "post-totalitarian" art.39

Artists' submissions were published in a 1993 issue of the New

Yorker. Komar & Melamid's suggested project stated:

we propose to mount an electronic tableau with the moving

word "Leninism" over the entrance to Lenin's mausoleum.
The familiar "Lenin" will appear on days traditionally
associated with his name. ...At other times artists and
poets could use the tableau for their own purposes.
Political and community organizations could take
advantage of the tableau to make announcements. Its
limitless usage could also include news and weather
reports, commercial advertisements, and so on.40 (Fig.15)
While Komar & Melamid's work is intentionally ambiguous,

ironic and at the same time caustic, their work is afforded

the luxury of a base in the United States.41 For East

39Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, "What Is To Be Done With

Monumental Propaganda?" New Formations #22 (Spring 1994) 1-3;
reprinted with images of proposals in "Monumental Propaganda,"
in Michael D. Kennedy, ed. Envisioning Eastern Europe:
Postcommunist Cultural Studies (Ann Arbour: The University of
Michigan Press, 1994) 66-72. The problems raised in Komar and
Melamid's work were taken up by Mikhail Ryklin in the lecture,
"Les dechets sublimes: le sort fait aux monuments en Russie
apres aout 1991," delivered at the conference, Memory of
Waste, Universite de Montreal, 23-26 March 1995.

40Lawrence Weschler, "Slight Modifications," The New Yorker (12

July 1993) 59-65. The article is captioned on the cover as
"The Great Lenin Garage Sale: Recycling Your Old Soviet Art."

41Krzysztof Wodiczko has criticized these artists, stating:

"Komar and Melamid are not clearly critical of either system.
They submerge themselves with perverse pleasure in the
repressive realities of both Soviet and American experiences,
wallowing in what they see as the equivalent decadence of both
empires. They perform art-historical manipulations to support
their political nihilism, creating, for example, pop-art
versions of socialist realism. I question the political
clarity and social effectiveness of adopting pop-art
strategies for the critique of Soviet culture."
Cited in Douglas Crimp et al., "Interview with Krzysztof
Wodiczko," in Russell Ferguson et al., eds. Discourses:
Conversations in Postmodern Art and Culture (New York: New
Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990) 320.
 62

Europeans who would have to live with reminders of the police

state they endured, destruction and not conservation was the

most coherent opinion. Note that statues of local officials,

rather than the ubiquitous Lenin or Stalin, were often the

first figures to be vandalized. Still, in the years following

the thaw of State communism the symbolic value of public

monuments kept them in currency, and this was because of, and

not in spite of, their changed meanings.42 There took place

in Budapest, for example, a management of Stalinist monuments

similar to that proposed by Komar & Melamid. In the summer of

1993, an open-air museum or theme park of socialist statues

was opened on the outskirts of the city. An article by Regine

Robin includes a newspaper report from Le Monde. It reads:

Covering four hectares on the outskirts of the city, the

museum includes some forty statues cind a dozen or so
commemorative plaques dating from the previous regime.
This is one of the few places in Hungary where one can
still display the red flag without having to be concerned
about breaking a recent ban that prohibits the use of
communist insignia except for "cultural" or "educational"
purposes. ...The opening of the park was preceded by a
spirited debate between those who favoured destroying the
statues and those who wanted them preserved - not to
mention, of course, those who advocated selling them (but
to whom?) and donating the proceeds to the "victims of
Communism.1,43

42In "La museification du ’socialisme reel'," Berthold Unfried

discusses the participation of Czech citizens in a making
public of their personal museums and propaganda objects. This
local instance of coming to terms with and remembering the
past is noticeably different from the official preservation of
communist monuments such as Berlin Wall fragments. See his
article in Communications #55 (1992) 23-42.
43Yves Michel Riols, "Hongrie, les statues socialistes au
musee," Le Monde (30 June 1993) cited in Regine Robin,
"Requiem for a Toppled Statue: History as Kitsch and Remake,"
 63

One could well understand that in dire circumstances the

Hungarian government would take the opportunity to make some

money by opening a socialist theme park for Western tourists.

This phenomenon is somewhat similar to the dispersal and

sale of the Berlin Wall, also a sort of monument to Communism.

Shortly after 1989, the East German government sold off the

pre-cast slabs that formed the outer Wall to private

individuals. Test marketing was done in New York City and

auctions were eventually held, first at the Inter-Continental

Hotel in West Berlin and then in Monte-Carlo as was mentioned

above. Segments can now be found throughout Europe and North

America. The identity of individuals and institutions that

own slab segments is also telling of the transformation of

defense wall into kitsch object. American Presidents Kennedy

(family), Nixon, Reagan and Bush were given a segment each,

the CIA has en entire row outside its headquarters, and even

the Vatican has its own piece of authentic Berlin Wall.

Despite the banality of shipping these three-tonne cement

slabs all over the world, the donation received by Montreal is

treated with fitting seriousness. It is presented as a solemn

commemorative monument. In contrast to the original surface

which was defenceless before graffiti artists, this monument
is now protected heritage; arrested in proper museological

fashion and conserved for educational purposes.

in Baird and Lewis, 83.

 64

Is it possible to preserve the memory of the events that

the Montreal fragment is designed to solicit without

coarsening historical knowledge? What does it mean to bring

to North America an object that even in its own place of

origin had undergone changes in meaning? The problematic that

arises in Komar & Melamid's "What Is To Be Done With

Monumental Propaganda?" appeared earlier in Canadian artist

Mark Lewis' three-part project: "What Is To Be Done." Unlike

Komar & Melamid, and Lenin's own posing of the phrase, Lewis'

title does not end with a question mark. Lewis' project,

consisting of an exhibition of photographs, a series of site­

specific public art works, and a theoretical essay, put

forward a number of challenging observations about the

technology of the public monument.

In considering the history of the monument since the time

of the French Revolution, Lewis concludes that the problem of

construction and destruction is inscribed within the logic of

monumentality. Preservation attempts to synthesize these two

forces. Now, if iconoclasm reveals an underlying "respect for
the image," then we can only expect, given further acts of
destruction, that the reproduction of monumentality and its

terrorization of the public sphere will manifest itself

repeatedly, with variations on symbolic content and historical

circumstance.44 Such a process of replacing the monuments of

44Lewis, "What Is To Be Done," 30. Please note that a

comparative study of the works of Krzysztof Wodiczko and Mark
Lewis with respect to the concept of collective memory can be
 65

the "Ancien Regime" with newer statues, or to recontextualize

the original works, reveals that the meaning of the monument

can change. That possibility is also inscribed within its

logic. As Lewis puts it, "the continued efficacy of the

monument [is] its ability to be always more and less than the

figure which it ostensibly represents".45 The possibility of

its re-appraisal, he argues, "is already contained within the

work from the start".46 Lewis addresses this symbolic

remainder in a discussion of the toppled Bucharest Lenin
(Fig.16):

For certainly victory monuments will forever be memorials

to what "the victory" refuses to announce, but ultimately
must reveal: that as communism has collapsed, for
instance, its victor, which needed its "enemy" in order
to articulate its own truth, is now equally haunted by
the slights of hand which have sustained the conceit of
a certain public freedom.

The impossible transformation of the monument to

communism into a monument to the demise of communism, is
also the monument to the impossibility of Capital, a
monument to its excess, its contradictions and
ultimately, its lack of identity. Let us say, that all
of this is to be revealed, glimpsed precisely in the
liminal image of the monument's removal, that moment when
one discourse will attempt to appropriate another.47

found in Niall Atkinson, The Bewildered Monument: Postscript

to a Memory in Ruins In partial fulfilment for the M.A. in Art
History (Toronto: York University, 1996).
“Lewis, "What Is To Be Done," 29.
“Lewis, "What Is To Be Done," 30.
47Mark Lewis, "What Is To Be Done?" in Scott Watson, ed. Mark
Lewis: Public Art, Photographs and Projects (Vancouver: UBC
Fine Arts Gallery, 1994) 70. A film produced by Mark Lewis
and Laura Mulvey examines the replacement of Stalinist
statuary with the repressed religious and royalist iconography
of the past. See Disgraced Monuments 16 mm film, 1993. A
 66

Lewis' site specific work began with the making of

fibreglass, metal and plaster replicas of the Bucharest Lenin.

These were reduced copies of the 30-foot bronze statue which

the mayor of the city wished to sell for hard currency.

Lewis' copies were one third the size of the original. They
were exhibited individually in Oxford, England (June 1990),
Quebec City (November 1990), Montreal (February 1991), and

Toronto (July 1991). In the case of all three Canadian

cities, the individual statues were vandalized. In each

location, a tall base supported a plaque with the inscription:

This statue is a one third replica of a twelve ton bronze

statue of Lenin recently removed from the city of
Bucharest. An anonymous collector has purchased the
statue from the Mayor of Bucharest and would like to
donate it for public display in this city. This is the
proposed site for the statue.
The acts of vandalism were perhaps rejoinders to Lewis'

proposal, which anticipates the multiplicity of possible

similar film by Stephan Sachs, And saw what should be done. ..,
documents the recent reconstruction of a gigantic statue of
Kaiser Wilhelm (at Koblenz) which was destroyed by American
troops in 1945. See "Images of History," Kinema Kommunale
(March/April 1995).

Structural dominants described in Lewis' theoretical project

can be noticed in the occupation of the former no-man's land
in Berlin with the new architecture that heralds the victory
of capitalism. For instance, Daimler Benz have publicized
their desire to display some Wall segments on their new site
at Potsdamer Platz. Note also that Wall concrete has been
used to build the roads that now pass through the old section
of the city that was once sectioned by the Wall.
 67

responses including a negative, destructive one.48 But more

should be said first about this particular Lenin's

specificity.

In a move analogous to Michael Asher's re-location of the

Washington monument into the museum, Lewis displaces his Lenin

reproduction from the political context of communist Eastern

Europe to the sphere of North American capitalism.49 "It goes

without saying," suggests Andrew Payne,

that such a gesture depends for its effect in the
capitalist West, that is to say, in a political culture
in which the space of the aesthetic and the space of the
political are understood to be functionally
differentiated.50
Another element of specificity has to do with the context of

the 'Parc Lafontaine' installation in Montreal. In each city,

Lewis placed the work near an already existing monument. The

Montreal Lenin was located directly in front of Roger
Langevin's Debout, a statue commemorating the Quebec writer,

"Vandalism is the sublimated telos of Lewis’ project. It

physically enacts the theoretical "horizon" his post­
structuralist approach to the question of representation and
meaning. This can be gleaned from the fact that the title
belongs not only to Lenin but to his predecessor, the
philosopher Tchernychevsky. The latter, whose writings
influenced anarchists and youth movements, is known for his
prison work, What Is To Be Done?, which can be classified as
utopian literature. I assume that the artist understands the
rejection of his artistic proposal through youthful vandalism
as equally a (unintentional/symptomatic) rejection of the idea
of a fullness of meaning in representation, and consequently,
a rejection of the possibility of socialist utopia.
49Note that this is not entirely accurate as Lewis' project
only begins after East European countries have begun the
reform and dismantling of State communism.
S0Andrew Payne, "The Statue Man," in Watson, 29.
 68

poet and ' chansonnier' Felix Leclerc. (Fig.17,18) Leclerc,

who died in 1988, was also well-known for his support of the

cause of Quebec sovereignty. Formally, the bronze Leclerc was

derided by federalists and nationalists alike. Critic Lise

Lamarche noted its style, reminiscent of socialist realism,

and its similarity to the Lenin statue.51 The works were

contrasted inasmuch as Langevin's work has little or no base;

Leclerc's legs are made to resemble tree trunks, alluding to

his rootedness in the soil of the nation.

Langevin's statue, unveiled in 1990, was purchased by the

'Mouvement National des Quebecois' by manner of public

subscription. It is but one of many political (nationalist)

public monuments in the park - the latest of which is Olivier

Debre's monument to Charles de Gaulle which was donated to

Montreal by the Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, in 1992. The

context for public art in 'Parc Lafontaine1 is highly charged

politically. Lewis' Lenin, which was placed directly in front

of the Leclerc statue on February 10th, 1991, was scheduled to

remain there for three weeks. Only nine days later, however,

it had been stolen, and this, after people had seen it tipped

over and pulled off its pedestal. Was Lenin kidnapped by the

'independantistes' as Johanne Lamoureux mused? Did the

complaints from the Soviet Consulate have anything to do with

slLise Lamarche, "Les Monuments de 1'Est: Notes a partir d'une

exposition de Mark Lewis," Espace #28 (Summer 1991) 28-30.
 69

its destruction?52
Inviting viewers to respond to his proposal for the site,

Lewis was complicit with the act of iconoclasm or vandalism,

for, as the artist himself wishes to make symbolically

visible, the work of public art's construction and destruction

share the same economy. The response, though, could have been

less a reaction to this site specific and temporary artwork

and its theoretical armature, than perhaps to: 1) its very

ephemerality; 2) its ironic stance; 3) its rhetorical

proposal; 4) its mockery of the Langevin monument and the

nationalist cause. In view of the latter, Andrew Payne is

perhaps correct in his estimation of the North American

context when he intimates Lewis' complicity with his

detractors,
with those who refuse to accept, like good sports, the
liberal credo that everything is permitted because
nothing is for real. For the very defacement of these
works returns to them something of that dignity and
danger which spoils in an atmosphere of cynical
consumption.53
Indeed, and this points to a flaw in Lewis' seamless
description of the technology of public art, and that is his

systematic approach to differences in historical and

geographical contexts which ascribes to monuments and their

symbolic economy ahistorical and formal properties. But

before accusing Lewis of a fashionable cultural hermeneutics,

52Johanne Lamoureux, "Mark Lewis and the Pollution of

Monuments," in Watson, 7-17.

53Payne, 31.
 70

it should be remarked that his many contextualizations seem to

foresee specificities of place that could fracture and weigh

down each reincarnation of the Lenin statue. His rhetorical

gesture is productive and positions his viewers, as members of

multiple publics, in a better position to participate in the

project than does the average work of public art, and this, if

only negatively.

I would like to conclude this section on the contemporary

questioning of the public monument with a brief description of

a project that was produced in West Germany before the

dismantling of the Berlin Wall. This piece deals with the

contemporary condition of the monument as I have described it

on a theoretical level, and the problem of not only critiquing

public art in an abstract manner but in practical terms. In

this case the city of Hamburg invited Jochen Gerz and Esther

Shalev-Gerz to submit a project for a monument against

Fascism, War and Violence and for Peace and Human Rights.

(Fig.19) Their monument, which was unveiled in 1986, is

described by James Young in his essay on the counter­

monument.5* For the Gerzes there was an obvious dilemma in

building a permanent didactic monument against fascism which

to them would seem to be a contradiction. They were

54James E. Young, "The Counter-Monument: Memory Against Itself

in Germany Today," in W.J.T. Mitchell, ed. Art and the Public
Sphere (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990, 1992)
49-78; reprinted in The Texture of Memory.
 71

"ethically certain" but "aesthetically sceptical" about of the

memorial form as something which supplants memory as much as

it preserves it.55 The Gerzes chose to place their work in

Harburg, a working-class suburb of Hamburg. Harburg is

populated by a mix of ethnic groups, many of them guest­

workers. The monument they created stood 12 metres in height

and one metre square. It consisted of a hollow column of

aluminum, which was plated with a layer of lead. Viewers were

invited to scratch their names or message into the lead

surface with a steel pen. Off to the side, an inscription was

added with a message written in seven different languages. It

read:

We invite the citizens of Harburg and visitors to the

town, to add their names here to ours. In doing so, we
commit ourselves to remain vigilant. As more and more
names cover the 12 meter tall lead column, it will
gradually be lowered into the ground. One day, it will
have disappeared completely and the site of the Harburg
monument against fascism will be empty. In the end, it
is only we ourselves who can rise up against injustice.

In the course of four years, the active participation of

people, some vandalizing it, others simply inscribing their

names and personal message, allowed the monument to be

lowered, one half meter sections at a time, into an empty

shaft. Each lowering was celebrated with another unveiling

ceremony until it finally disappeared altogether. Today, only

5SYoung in Mitchell, 53. The issues of dealing with the past

as a means of wishing it done away with is discussed in
Theodor W. Adorno, "What Does Coming to Terms with the Past
Mean?" in Geoffrey H. Hartman, ed. Bitburq in Moral and
Political Perspective (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1986) 114-129.
 72

a stone remains, with the inscription: "Harburg's Monument

Against Fascism." For the artists, as Young mentions, the
monument objectifies

not only the Germans' secret desire that all these

monuments just hurry up and disappear but also the urge
to strike back at such memory, to sever it from the
national body like a wounded limb.56

This particular monument, however, also reveals much about

the limitations of all monuments, particularly those which

would ostensibly require the work of remembrance. In its

self-destruction, the counter-monument points to the tension

between memory and forgetfulness, between aesthetic form and

social process. In the course of time and space, the mnemonic

form, that is to say, the monument, changes meaning. In this

sense, permanence can only be counterpoised to memory, for as

Young puts it, "the life of memory exists in historical

time."57 The past then, while immutably fixed, is only ever

remembered in the present conjuncture.

Contemporary critical art practices produce works that

embody the contradictions of the public sphere and of

monumental representation. In some instances they clarify

these contradictions inasmuch as they make them temporarily

s6Young in Mitchell, 63. This issue of commemoration as a

comforting discourse is analyzed in Irit Rogoff, "The
Aesthetics of Post-History: A German Perspective," in Stephen
Melville and Bill Readings, eds. Vision and Textualitv
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1995) 115-140.
57Young in Mitchell, 78.
 73

visible. In each case, the art works I have mentioned

accentuate the public monument’s changing meaning and cultural
value. More than just effects of discourse, these meanings

are grounded in social practices and produce a public as much

as they represent it. Representations entail the constitution

of social spaces and social practices, they are also shaped by

these. As the notion of the public sphere becomes the object

of both deconstruction and radical politicization, notions of

public art change with it. In the case of the Montreal Wall

fragment, a municipal government programme took great care in

determining the context of the object and its interpretive

framework. I have suggested that critical art practices are

not just the preserve of a separate and specialized art

public, but can and have affected the way contemporary culture

consumes and produces public monuments. It is my contention

that the CCMM display can be considered in light of

contemporary site specific and situational works particularly

since the new official works of public art in Montreal reflect

an awareness of a broad range of contextual strategies, from

simple iconic marking (tourist information) to more detailed

site specific and deconstructive work.

In the following chapter I will discuss the particular

context chosen to display the Montreal Wall fragment.

Although the chosen site was the last in a series of

deliberations, which in itself indicates a plurality of

possible interpretive frameworks, the final decision and

 74

implementation ('mise en valeur') determines more than any

other consideration, the situational parameters of public

interpretation and response to the monument. This, of course,

involves the decision to maintain the object in its physical

entirety with the graffiti preserved and protected.

 CHAPTER 3

Site and context have played an important role in the art

work of contemporary artists who have dealt with the condition

of the monument in contemporary culture. The aesthetics and

strategies of contextualism inform my reading of the Berlin

Wall fragment display. As part of a detailed study of the

Montreal installation, this chapter will examine the

particularities of the CCMM in relation to the categories of

place-image, representational space and the social practices

that are favoured by them. The history of the CCMM site will

also be shown to have a crucial bearing on the reading of the

Wall fragment.
The development of the 'Centre de commerce mondial de

Montreal' was celebrated and legitimized by the discourse of

heritage. Heritage, as will be shown, is a flexible and

therefore malleable concept, subject to different uses and

orchestrations. Many facets of the heritage phenomenon are

currently enjoying a privileged status in contemporary

culture. Under the epithet of postmodernism, heritage has
gained an incomparable ascendancy and legitimation, albeit,

not without having undergone simulacral and commodified

mutations.

Postmodernism, more than just a regrettable cultural side­

effect of late capitalism, represents a cultural 'rattrapage'

with the implications of modernist cultural values and

assumptions. In this sense, postmodernism must be understood

to have implications for our modernist culture, and not simply

 76

seen as a solution to, or extension of, bad old modernism. To

put it simply, we must reject the facile oedipal analogy.

Heritage, as an aspect of postmodern culture, undergoes

transformations that permeate both aesthetic and economic

considerations.
In the pages below, I will examine a section of real

estate and the office complex which presently occupies its

site, that is, the 'Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal.'

Built between 1985 and 1992, the CCMM incorporates many of the

attributes of architectural and social postmodernism. Its

scale and the speed at which it was planned and executed are
also characteristic of transformations in the
construction/destruction capacities of contemporary

bureaucracies and technologies. The CCMM will be examined

according to knowledge produced by materialist theory. It

will therefore be understood in its local context as much as

in relation to the global forces that helped shape its

development. The aesthetic and symbolic design of the Centre

will also be considered as well as its material use of

heritage and the attendant construction of particular

histories and memories.

For the sake of argument, let us begin with the assumption

that the CCMM represents a clear instance of postmodern

architecture. A comparison of the CCMM with the neighbouring

Montreal Stock Exchange building (Nervi and Moretti, 1962-
 77

1965) will help substantiate this assumption. Forty seven

storeys tall, this curtain-wall construction of glass and

metal dominates the skyline. Across the square, on the city

block circumscribed by McGill, St. Antoine, St. Pierre and St.

Jacques streets, is located the Montreal World Trade Centre.

A modest ten to twelve storeys tall and composed of separately

articulated units, some of these nineteenth-century buildings,

the Centre is blended into its urban context. (Fig.20)

The distinction between the two architectural genres is

not accidental, but an intentional feature of the CCMM's self­

conscious insertion into the fabric of Old Montreal.

Developers of the Centre made a virtue of its distinguishing

features, its horizontality and its environmental sensitivity.

The latter affects both its internal design as well as its

external form. Journalist Isabel Corral comments on its

internal conceptualization and its differentiation from

modernist buildings like the Stock Exchange. She writes:

A sense of place is something that is very important to
us. Being able to identify where we are makes us feel
comfortable. Modern buildings, with their repetitive
facades and floor plans, can be said to lack a sense of
place - if you get off on the wrong floor you may not
notice it until you have travelled a long way. In the
WTC, special attention has been devoted to creating
spaces that are unique and identificible to each corporate
client and to individuals. ...over 100 easily
identifiable spaces in the project have been created for
the public users.1
Corral's remarks on environmental quality are paralleled by

Isabel Corral, "Innovative World Trade Centre takes up

challenge: 'Horizontal skyscraper' aims for a better type of
office," The Gazette (5 January 1991).
 78

the developers' focus on the horizontality of the building and

its attention to environmental sensitivity, as a feature of

urban planning.2

In the critical literature and in the architectural milieu

in particular there persists the widely disseminated belief

that architectural modernism and postmodernism represent

antithetical movements. In this type of argumentation,

modernism and modernity are defined by the formal concerns of

aesthetic autonomy and self-referentialily. Movements such as

the International Style and the derisively named "brutalism"

are critiqued for destroying local particularities of place

and for their inhuman scales and environments. Modern

architecture is equally associated with Enlightenment

rationalism as well as modernity's futurist and utopian

ambitions. While advocates of postmodernism pit themselves

against the austerity and insensitivity of modern

architecture, its critics, on the other hand, routinely

mention postmodernism's populist penchant, its suburbanization

of the urban landscape, its spurious concessions to

historicism, scenography, commercialism and pretentious

display of wealth. Although advocates rightfully offer

nuanced and differentiated opinions of postmodernism, they are

less likely to do as much for its precursor. Subscribing to

the evolutionary and progressive reasoning they ostensibly

2Jean-Pierre Bonhomme, "Une architecture nouvelle pour le

Centre de commerce mondial," La Presse (29 September 1988).
 79

repudiate, these critics ignore modernism's instability as a

cultural process.3 Heritage, for instance, emerged as a

response to and in parallel with modernity. Today, we are

undeniably faced with postmodern heritage.

The alibi of postmodern urbanism is its retro function,

its acknowledged desire to recycle, retrieve and revive

earlier forms and functions of modern spatial types (parks,

squares, arcades), and thereby to restore to the city a lost

coherence. Rosalyn Deutsche argues that the rhetoric of

postmodern preservation covers up the contradictions brought

forth by "real destructive acts"; it also seeks, like its

modernist antecedent, to create a "unified spatial order,"

but this time without the utopian aspirations.4 Projects like

the CCMM, said to be sensitive to local context, often

manufacture the opposite. Transforming and recoding urban

space, they can altogether alter a site's meaning, change its

uses and accessibility, and even recontextualize the

neighbouring area. Conservative celebrations of postmodernism
as unproblematic re-enchantment and free-play of meaning are

inadequate. To differentiate definitions of both modernism

and postmodernism, then, is to surmount the simplifying

3This concept is developed in Yiirgen Habermas, "Modern and

Postmodern Architecture," in John Forester, ed. Critical
Theory and Public Life (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1985) 317­
329. See also, Martin Jay, "Habermas and Postmodernism," in
Irit Rogoff, ed. The Divided Heritage, 75-85.
’Rosalyn Deutsche, "Architecture of the Evicted," in Krzysztof
Wodiczko: New York City Tableau: Tomkins Sguare/The Homeless
Vehicle Project (New York: Exit Art, 1990) 28.
 80

historicist tendencies that attend the evaluations of the new

as progress.5
Postmodernism, however, cannot be simply reabsorbed within

a discourse on modernity. Things have changed. Contemporary

anxiety about the state of global financial rentier circuits,

for instance, accompanies two related phenomena: the

abandonment of the modernist project and the continuation of

productivist overbuilding, this time in the form of postmodern

spaces. In the case of the former, Buck-Morss satirically

remarks:
In this cynical time of the "end-of-history, " adults know
better than to believe in social utopias of any kind -
those of production and consumption. Utopian fantasy is
quarantined, contained within the boundaries of theme
parks and tourist preserves, like some ecologically
threatened but nonetheless dangerous zoo animal.6

Examining the "regressive utopias" of contemporary architects,

Dan Graham goes further than Buck-Morss and suggests that

postmodern architecture envisions the city itself as a

degenerate theme park or museum.7 What remains certain is

that the postmodern movement in architecture, however short­

lived it may prove to be, offers no social solutions to urban

5See for instance Kevin Robins' critique of "critical

regionalism" in his "Prisoners of the City: Whatever Could a
Postmodern City Be?" New Formations #15 (Winter 1991) 1-22.
6Susan Buck-Morss, "The City as Dreamworld and Catastrophe,"
October #73 (Summer 1995) 26.
7Dan Graham, "The City as Museum," in Brian Wallis, ed. Rock
My Religion: Writings and Projects, 1965-1990 (Cambridge: The
MIT Press, 1993). Please note that Graham's analysis is quite
distinct from Baudrillard's theory of the "precession of the
simulacrum."
 81
problems that have not been conceived in the past. One is

more likely to see in it compensatory rather than utopian

tendencies. But perhaps this is to expect too much from a

movement which proffers simulation as a solution to the

contradictions of modernism.

To examine the development of the CCMM is to already be

aware that buildings are not discreet physical objects - nor

are cities for that matter. Aesthetic and art historical

discourses, however, tend to examine objects as unified,

transhistorical essences. In making a materialist critique of

idealist aesthetic and urban discourses, Deutsche contends

that the work done by conceptual artists in the late 1960s and

1970s coincides with transformations taking place in urban

theory. Her numerous publications examine the implications of

materialist practices and theories on the understanding of

both space and representation. "Aestheticist dogma," she

writes,
holds that the visual components of the city - monuments,
buildings, parks, art - contain inherent, fixed and
autonomous aesthetic value. The "beautiful city," by
definition, has no social function except an ahistorical
one - to nourish the transcendent inner visions of the
unchanging human spirit. From yet another point of view,
the symbolic nature of urban structures is openly
celebrated, but such objects are believed to express
essential values and beliefs adhered to by a united
society. All these idealist notions, projected onto
architecture, disavow the social production of meaning.
When, in turn, they are projected by architecture, they
are instrumental in securing consent to urban political
 82

processes such as, most recently, redevelopment.8

Deutsche critiques the ecological model of sociology and the

emphasis on functionalism which produce a naturalized vision

of the "built environment," its "growth" a result of

technological and social development. Here, function and

utility appear "to be controlled by natural, mechanical, and

organic laws."’ Buildings and spaces would seem to provide

proper functions for people understood as "users." This

essentialist view of space is predicated on idealist notions

of space as abstract, neutral, and practical. It is

instituted in the discourse of realism. Deutsche contrasts to

this the approach of writers such as Henri Lefebvre who

examine space as imbricated in social relations.10 If we

accept that space is a medium that is socially produced and

productive of social relations, subjectivities and meanings,

then the city and the built environment must be seen as sites

of struggle and conflicting uses. Far from embodying

essential and transcendental functions, spaces are materially
embedded constructions, their uses and meanings contested

politically. Deutsche relates this to contemporary heritage

restoration and simulation, practices that are no less

eDeutsche, "Architecture of the Evicted," 32.

’Deutsche, "Uneven Development," 6.

10From the perspective of political economy, see Mark

Gottdiener, The Social Production of Urban Space (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1985).
 83

ideologically motivated.11

As an instance of contemporary "heritage" construction,

the CCMM figures as part of a three-fold strategy of

redevelopment. The three objectives correspond to the spatial

scales of urban sector, metropolitan area and international

level. As part of the central business district of the early

twentieth century, the sector in which the CCMM is located was

once animated by successful legal, financial, and business

offices. In the late nineteenth century, St. James (Saint-

Jacques) Street was the "Wall Street" of Montreal and perhaps

even the whole of Canada. (Fig.21) By the 1960s, though, the

Ville-Marie expressway separated this sector from the business

district to the north. Although the decline of the area began

with the move of retail and office spaces in the early

twentieth century, the years following WWII marked a

particularly difficult period for this sector as disinvestment

and abandonment of spaces left it in a state of decline. By

the late 1970s, however, the projected redevelopment of Old

Montreal lent the fabled St. James Street a newly foreseeable

cachet.12

As the developers acknowledge, the CCMM was designed to

connect Old Montreal with the St. Catherine and Rene Levesque

“Deutsche, "Krzysztof Wodiczko's Homeless Projection," 63-98.

12See Ludger Beauregard, La rue Saint-Jacques a Montreal: Une
qeoqraphie des bureaux (Montreal: Universite de Montreal,
Departement de Geographie, Notes et Documents No.81-02, 1981).
 84

business district - and to the floundering 'Cite

Internationale' projects. The transformation of this block

anchors the redevelopment of Old Montreal while providing a

focal point for extensions of this process to the west, in the

'Faubourg des Recollets' and Lachine canal area. At the same

time, the project's effect on the entire city centre was said
by promoters to be as momentous as the building of Place

Ville-Marie in 1962. Its only comparable projects in this

latter phase of the city's development are the IBM-Marathon
Realties tower on Rene Levesque and the Lavalin/BCED/Teleglobe

high-rise, better known as '1000 de la Gauchetiere. ' The CCMM

outnumbered these projects in its square footage; of its

modest height it made a supreme virtue. The third spatial

consideration was to help make Montreal a global city, capable

of competing with other metropolitan cities in the

international marketplace. By extension, this would benefit

the entire province.

By emphasizing the lateral extensions and spatial

dislocations of the "development" of this particular piece of

real estate, however, I would like to posit the

interconnectedness of socio-economic processes across spatial

scales.13 Deutsche has also examined the literature on

gentrification in order to account for the urban and aesthetic

13For the theorization of spatial scales in the global context,

see Neil Smith, "Contours of a Spatialized Politics: Homeless
Vehicles and the Production of Geographical Scale," Social
Text #33 (1992) 54-81.
 85

changes to downtown city cores. She emphasizes the fact that

redevelopment is not an inevitable process, explained by the

whimsy of entrepreneurialism or by an unavoidable "back-to-

the-city" movement, but is a socio-economic process that is

structural rather than incidental.14 Here she draws from work

in political economy and geography.

In many of the essays already mentioned, Deutsche connects

redevelopment with the economic process of disinvestment.

From David Harvey's 1973 study, Social Justice and the City,

she preserves the idea that capitalist urbanization embodies

the contradictory aspects of land's commodification into real

estate. The contradiction is between land's status as

privately owned commodity and its social character.15 With

regard to redevelopment, this contradiction allows speculators

to devalorize certain neighbourhoods or districts and then

later re-exploit the same site when high returns can be

counted on. From geographer Neil Smith's studies, she

recounts how the financial process of capital overaccumulation

often leads to real estate investment and development as a

means to counteract falling rates of profit.16 Smith's theory

is that the devalorization of a sector creates a gap between

14See for instance, Deutsche, "Property Values: Hans Haacke,

Real Estate, and the Museum," in Brian Wallis, ed. Hans
Haacke: Unfinished Business (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1986)
20-37.

lsDeutsche, "Alternative Space," 57.

16Deutsche, "Uneven Development," 26.

 86

its original and potential value. The discrepancy between

devalorized and gentrified neighbourhoods is what he calls

uneven development. Gentrification constitutes a social

process that dislodges redundant and surplus populations and

businesses from an area, only to alter its uses and conditions

in order to accommodate new users - in most instances, white

middle-class professionals, members of the emerging business

and service economy.

The redevelopment of city centres is also structurally
linked to changes taking place in the "new," global economy.
As David Harvey argues, highly mobile multinational capital

seeks to invest in a region with high production, consumer,

service and business capacities.17 In order to attract such

capital, the "entrepreneurial city" will market its distinct

image, capitalizing on particularities of place. Ironically,

the historical restoration and imitation schemes that such

projects promote are often homages to a local past as much as

to international pressures and standards. Needless to say,

these heritage projects are often indistinguishable from one
city to another.
Montreal has undertaken such measures and the CCMM is but

one aspect of a broad governmental strategy to redefine the

17David Harvey, "Urban Places in the 'Global Village':

Reflections on the World Condition in Late Twentieth Century
Capitalism," in Luigi Mazza, ed. World Cities and the Future
of the Metropoles: International Participations (Milan:
Electa/XVII Triennale, 1988) 21-33. A more detailed
elaboration of this thesis can be found in his The Condition
of Postmodernity (1989).
 87

city as one of North America's international centres. While

aesthetic refashioning and heritage preservation are pleasing

and warranted actions, Montreal's socio-economic context has

changed a good deal since the development boom of the 1980s.

By the 1990s, the city faced real problems in terms of

unemployment (20-40%), a high percentage of people on welfare,

homelessness, and poverty level incomes. The problems were

compounded by a general exodus to the suburbs and an

anglophone exodus reaching total numbers of about 500,000

people. A polarization of rich and poor becomes more evident

in the city centre which counts high numbers of elderly people

and new immigrants. By the early 1990s, the City was losing

hundreds of millions of dollars a year on interest payments

alone, further reducing its bond rating performance.18 The

present municipal government's solution has been corporate­

style downsizing and privatization of services. In 1996, the

City of Montreal spent two million dollars of public funds to

conduct research on privatization.19 These facts cannot be
separated from the signs of prosperity that distinguish the

new development projects of Old Montreal from other urban

sectors.

18Andre Picard and Ann Gibbon, "In the hole...and there's no

way out: Montreal Malady/Thousands of people have fled the
city for the suburbs, taking their tax dollars, jobs and
political clout with them," The Globe and Mail (8 January
1993).

19Andre Picard, "Closed-door politics opens privatization

rumours," The Globe and Mail (19 March 1996).
 88

The redevelopment of Old Montreal is not legitimized

solely on the merit of what physically occupies the site, but

for the compounded economic investments these projects are

intended to produce in the years ahead. The "Old Montreal

Project" was designed to reproduce what had already taken

place in other comparable North American cities such as

Boston, Baltimore, New York, San Francisco, and also Vancouver

and Toronto. Boston's Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market,

developed by the firm of James Rouse, were considered in the

1970s and 80s to be examples of the newest means of conversion

for waning industrial sectors. With the help of government

backing, Rouse would restore spaces in decline and transform

them into mixed-use pseudo-traditional environments. Other

projects of his include Baltimore's Inner Harbour and New

York's South Street Seaport. Despite the vicarious forms of

communal consumption that these types of projects manufacture,

they have served as models for the redevelopment of the Old

Port of Montreal.20

The redevelopment of Old Montreal begins with the Montreal

Citizen's Movement, a party elected on the promise of creating
a master plan for the downtown region. Although the plan

never came to fruition, the MCM did "rediscover" Old Montreal

as a new site for investment. This should have come as no

20This is well-documented in Jean-Claude Marsan's Sauver

Montreal: Chronigues d'architecture et d'urbanisme (Montreal:
Boreal, 1990).
 89

surprise, however, as public consultations on the

redevelopment of the Old Port took place as early as 1979.

That year, the City and province established '1'Entente sur la

mise en valeur du Vieux Montreal' which was in effect until

1989 and which resulted in annual tax abatements and subsidies

for private investors of up to $1.5 million. (Fig. 22) At the

end of that term the two governments agreed to a five year
plan representing another $34 million. A few years before

1989, the federal government created the ' Societe du Vieux

Montreal' corporation in order to inject one half billion

dollars into Old Montreal before the 1992 celebrations of the

city's 350th anniversary. Public hearings also took place on

the future development of the 'Faubourg des Rdcollets' and

Lachine canal area to the west. A paramunicipal society, le

'Centre d'intervention pour la revitalisation des quartiers'

(CIRQ) was established by the 'Societe de developpement de

Montreal' (SDM or Sodemont) in order to oversee investment in

the latter areas.

CIRQ, however, is but a pale example of the paramunicipal

responsible for the redevelopment of Old Montreal, the

'Societe immobiliere du patrimoine architectural' or SIMPA.
The SIMPA was created two years after the 1979 'Entente' in

order to attract private investment to the sector. By 1992,

the SIMPA had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into

22 projects in Old Montreal, with private investment estimated

to be up to at least six times greater. The population of the
 90

area doubled at this time to 2,000 and was foreseen to triple

in the near future. The projects it helped promote are

numerous and of very different characteristics; their common
feature is their historicism and heritage aspects. As an

architectural artefact, the CCMM must therefore be understood

in relation to spatial patterns of development and economic

distribution. As its developers intimated, its effect on its

context was hoped to be dynamic. If the redevelopment of Old

Montreal remains limited to those projects in existence, its

promoters will have at least been successful in creating sin

image of the City that corresponds to international standards

of post-industrial accomplishment.

Unlike most large business complexes, the CCMM is unusual

in its mixture of private and public interests. The concept

of bringing a World Trade Centre franchise to Montreal was

supported by the Drapeau administration in 1985.21 The

proposal was put forth by Devencore Inc. Devencore president,

Philip O'Brien, was vice-president of Trizec at the time of

the building of the 'Place Ville-Marie.' He has been

president of the Montreal Chamber of Commerce and was a

promoter of the 'Place Mercantile' on Sherbrooke street. With

21Note that the number of WTCs has practically doubled since

that time. There are now approximately 280 WTCs in over 81
countries. Under pressure from the GATT organization, these
have been developed at an incredible speed. Presenting itself
as "non-political," the World Trade Centre Association
coordinates the activities of global WTCs; the New York-based
Association was founded in 1968.
 91

the backing of the Chamber of Commerce and representing

"several unidentified Quebec-based financial institutions,"

Devencore spearheaded the development of the Centre.22

Through the Association of the CCMM (later, 'Societe de

promotion du CCMM'), ttie Chamber of Commerce would oversee the

management of the project.

From the outset, the CCMM received the support of both the

municipal government as well as major companies and banks.

The rationales mentioned earlier, the benefits of the project

for Old Montreal and for the city as a whole, are repeated
throughout the 6 year phase of its development. Its site,

function and size made it the most newsworthy project of the

period. Its conservation scheme, which the developers

initiated after consultation with professional organizations,

sweetened the proposal- By the construction phase, the owners

of the project were identified: 37.5% was held by the

provincial pension fund, the 'Caisse de depot et placement du

Quebec' (through its subsidiary, 'Les Immeubles Cadev Inc.');

30% by Devencore International (25% of which belonged to

O'Brien's holding company, Capitex); another 25% was divided

between the City's two paramunicipals, the SIMPA and the SHDU

22Fran Halter, "Office, stores planned on St.Jacques," The

Gazette (25 February 1986). See also Jean Chartier, "Pret de
$80 millions pour le Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal:
La CIBC veut accroitre sa presence dans le secteur immobilier
a Montreal," Le Devoir (8 March 1989); Robert Winters,
"Construction chief confounds his critics: College dropout
heads one of city's most ambitious new real-estate projects,"
The Gazette (23 July 1989).
 92

(Societe d'habitation et du developpement urbain); a final

7.5% belonged to the Canada Life Assurance Company. An $80

million short-term loan was secured through the Canadian

Imperial Bank of Coxnmerce which had no difficulty finding

support from international banks. The city would eventually

agree to finance 40% of the underground parking as well as

half of the shares in the Inter-Continental Hotel which

brought the value of the entire CCMM project to about $240

million.
A number of more unusual aspects to this arrangement were

eventually announced. A nineteenth-century building called

the Nordheimer was sold to the developers before public

consultations. As well, the entire stretch of the 'ruelle des

Fortifications' between McGill and St. Pierre streets,

estimated at a value of $400,000, was allocated to the

promoters. The issue of government subsidies to private
interests was also in evidence with the backing of the
underground parking garage which would incur a half million

dollar annual loss for the foreseeable future. The City's

legal services, however, considered both the garage and the

expropriation of property to be justifiable as the municipal

government is not in the money-making business and as these
projects are beneficial to the city.23

23Service du contentieux, Etudes des avocats, Montreal,

February 9, 1987. Cited in Ville de Montreal, Comite
consultatif sur 1'implantation du Centre de commerce de
Montreal, Annexes: Rapport final du Comite (Montreal: Ville de
Montreal, 1987). This is the most useful source of official
 93

Although the protection of old buildings served as a

distinguishing feature of the project, and despite the

builders' efforts to initiate conservation and contextual

efforts, many groups were critical of the CCMM’s public

consultation process. The two open meetings scheduled in the

fall of 1987 appeared to be exercises in public relations more

than actual consultations. Only two days of notice were given
before the first hearing and no consultations were held on the

public aspect of the funding. The balance between private and

public cooperation became obviously skewed shortly after the

official opening of the Centre in 1992. Confronted with a 70%

inoccupancy rate, the CCMM association was forced to

renegotiate a new loan under poor bargaining conditions. The

paramunicipals absorbed Capitex's shares and refinanced the

project with a new loan of $86 million which cost the

municipality $2.7 million in brokerage expenses.24 Another

blind spot in the promoters' consultation was neglecting to

secure prospective tenants before building. The scandals

accrued as the City tried to offset its losses by moving its

own offices into the high-priced grade A office space of the

documents concerning the government planning of the CCMM. See

also Ville de Montreal, Comite consultatif sur 1'implantation
du Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal: Rapport final du
Comite (Montreal: Ville de Montreal, 1987).
24Gilles Gauthier, "Montreal doit emprunter 86 millions pour
financer le Centre de commerce mondial," La Presse (16 October
1992); Francois Shalom, "City to bail out World Trade Centre:
Goes to international bond market to finance Old Montreal
complex," The Gazette (16 October 1992).
 94

Centre.
The guaranteed security that the CCMM could manage is a
sign that no matter how improbable a project may seem,
bureaucratized decision-making mixed with resource speculation

can help authorize changes to the built environment. Clearly,

this takes us beyond notions of trends and waves of

development to the commissioned production of such processes

by accumulation, disinvestment and redevelopment. How are we

to make sense of the overlap between real estate speculation

and governmentally assured conditions of profitability and

survival? If this issue poses itself as a problem - i.e. of

the blurring of the lines between private and public sectors -

it is likely due to the assumption that private and public can

be considered discreet categories in the first place.

Following the response of Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt

to Habermas' theory of the public sphere, Rosalyn Deutsche

suggests that the assumption of a distinction between private

and public spheres enacts a repression. "This repression,"

she writes,

a hallmark of the bourgeois public sphere, results from

its origins in the false demarcation drawn in bourgeois
society between the private and public realms. Because
economic gain, protected from public accountability by
its seclusion within the private domain, actually depends
on conditions that are publicly provided, the bourgeois
public sphere developed as a means by which private
interests seek to control public activity. But since
capitalism requires the preservation of the illusion that
a well-defined boundary divides the public and private
realms, the contradictions that gave birth to the public
sphere are perpetuated and "reconciled" in its
operations. Conflicts between groups are obfuscated by
generalizing dominant interests as universal and by
 95

simultaneously privatizing experience.25

The veracity of this statement is evident in the material form

of the CCMM, in its social constitution and its actuality as

a social relation. An authoritarian decision-making process

produces a private space with the help of public funds - and

all of this without the least mention of urban or social

reform. This space is then represented as providing amenities

for the public, but what in fact is produced is a pseudo­

public space, catering to the needs and requirements of local

and international business people. Modern, postmodern,

regional, or contextual? Does it matter?

While the CCMM is an integrated complex, it is at the same

time composed of a number of individual buildings; some of

these retain their separateness. The architects of the Centre

are Arcop Associates and Provencher Roy Architects. Together

with the firm Gersovitz Becker Moss Architects, this team of

professionals built a complex of reinforced concrete with

masonry and brick facades as well as natural and artificial

stone facades. From August to October of 1988 a number of

buildings were demolished and the ground cleared. (Fig.23)

Remaining were a few facades deemed worthy of preservation.

Anchoring the CCMM proj ect are three turn-of-the-century

buildings which remained unchanged except for alterations made
to integrate them with the new Centre. The proprietors of

25Deutsche, "Uneven Development," 11.

 96

these three independently owned buildings did take advantage

of the construction period to renovate their properties.
These buildings belong to Canada Steamship Lines/Power

Corporation, the Bank of Nova Scotia, and the occupants of the

Merchants' Bank Building.26 In the course of their

development, the buildings underwent the modification of

additional floors. This concept of the preservation of

architectural vocabulary for building extensions provided the
developers of the CCMM with historical references for their

own project.
These office buildings are monuments to the era when St.

James Street was a powerful financial district. Aware of the

potential symbolic value of their project, the developers

argued that the CCMM would not only replace the

"uninteresting" buildings that were located on the site, but
would also render to St. Jacques Street its former vocation as

a financial sector. They unabashedly promoted the historicist

fantasy of returning the area to its former golden age.

Bound to this image that the developers wished to

construct were discordant elements. On the north-east corner

once stood the property of the Robert Mitchell Co., built in
1862. (Fig.24) The Mitchell building, I would argue, bore

witness to another history altogether, not that of the salad

26See Guy Pinard, "Les edifices anciens du Centre de commerce

mondial," in his Montreal: son histoire, son architecture.
Tome 6 (Montreal: Meridien, 1995) 121-139. See also Marc H.
Choко, The Major Squares of Montreal trans. Kate Roth
(Montreal: Meridiem Press, 1990).
 97

days of bankers and financiers, but of early industry in

Montreal. Mitchell's factory, built on the same site as an

early foundry, produced metal and bronze parts for trains and

tramways as well as gas and electric lamps. After his

departure, the site was occupied by a number of different
businesses including a locksmith, a tailor's shop, a laundry
company and a newspaper company. If preserved, the Mitchell

would have figured as one of the four pillars of this city

block. It was rated "superior" in the provincial Ministry of

Cultural Affairs inventory of Old Montreal architecture; it

also figured in the Montreal Urban Community's index to

industrial architecture.27 The integrity of all designated

heritage was compromised by the demolition of the Mitchell

building, and for this reason, much criticism was directed at

the developers and the municipality.28 Ironically, the

Mitchell was replaced by the 24 storey Inter-Continental
Hotel, the franchise of a chain which prides itself in its

efforts at historical restoration.

As an appendage to the Inter-Continental Hotel, however,

27Ville de Montreal, Repertoire d' architecture traditionnelle

sur le territoire de la communaute urbaine de Montreal:
Architecture industrielle (Montreal: Communaute urbaine de
Montreal/Service de la plannification du territoire, 1982).

28It is thought that the destruction of the Mitchell had

unfortunate repercussions. See Joshua Wolfe, "Political will
to save the Queen's Hotel was lacking," The Gazette (22
October 1988). For a defense of the demolition in pragmatic
terms, see Jean-Claude Marsan, "Le Centre de commerce mondial
de Montreal: La revitalisation dans la continuite," Le Devoir
(31 October 1987).
 98

the Centre did restore the Nordheimer building, located on St.

Jacques street beside the Merchants' Bank. The Nordheimer now

contains conference rooms and facilities, restaurants, a

ballroom, bar, and wine cellar. In the entire Centre, the

Nordheimer constitutes the only notable instance of "heritage

preservation." Built in 1888 after a fire destroyed the

"first Nordheimer, " this building housed a number of companies

but is remembered for the Nordheimer piano company store with

its large windows and interior light well. (Fig.25) The

developers preserved the entire facade with the exception of

the ground floor section which was reconstructed in an

appropriate red granite. An elaborate roof decoration was

also redesigned. The restoration of the Nordheimer is

attributable to Gersovitz and Moss who produced a preliminary

architectural study of all of the buildings on the site.2’

Response to the Nordheimer1s redevelopment has generally

been positive. Even. Heritage Montreal applauded its cultural

restoration, manifesting a tendentious habit of invoking the

"spirit" of the past. The spirit of the place may even have
been more important than its actual physical condition before

restoration. Indeed, the promotional material capitalizes on

the building's luxurious Victorian and even "orientalist"

29Julia Gersovitz, Les Fortifications, Montreal, Devencore

(Etude du potentiel architectural du quadrilatere McGill,
Saint-Pierre, Saint-Antoine, Saint-Jacques) (Montreal: 1986).
Despite numerous requests to the firm Fournier/Gersovitz/Moss,
to Devencore Inc. and to the CCMM, this document was not made
available to me for research consultation.
 99

allure .30 While the developers argued against simulation

aesthetics in the case of the Mitchell building, they saw no

contradiction in their recreation of this interior. Without

a doubt, the Nordheimer's history and ambience was more

appropriate to the type of memory work they wished to produce.

While the Nordheimer offered the possibility of a

reconstruction of the interior based on the existing physical

structure, the other buildings on the site were said to have

had voidergone enough modification throughout this century to

warrant their demolition. The architectural concept of the

CCMM was basically to preserve those facades that are old

enough and in good enough condition, and to build the new

interiors with respect to those exterior addresses, alluding

to the existing cadastral lines. The CCMM's promoters

described their project in this way:

Le concept architectural de 1'ensemble s'elabore

principalement sur 1'erection d'immeubles qui
respecteront les subdivisions cadastrales du site,
maintenant ainsi le rythme des facades, et sur la
conservation de fragments juges les plus interessants;
enfin, ce concept inclut la renovation et la restauration
d'immeubles existants.... La particularite de ce concept
architectural reside dans 1'expression de continuite
qu’il etablit avec 1'architecture du quartier, dans un
langage et une maniere de faire tout a fait
contemporain.31

30H6tel Inter-Continental Montreal, publicity brochure and

loose leaf handout. See also Henry Lehman, "Architect finds
role as preserver of endangered species: Nordheimer building
is latest patient pulled back from the brink," The Gazette (17
August 1991).

31Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal, Presentation du plan

d1ensemble a la Ville de Montreal (September 1987) in Rapport
final du Comite: Annexes 78.
 100

Discounting the actual acts of demolition and reconstruction,

a premium was placed in these descriptions on the logic of

continuity. Not only did this incorporate the actual facade

fragments, but also the history of a continuous extension of

building height. At the official public hearing, Julia

Gersovitz presented the idea as such:

Retenons entre autres que le developpement immobilier au

debut des annees 1800 etait surtout compose de maisons et
petits commerces a deux ou trois etages et que le
ruisseau St-Martin delimitait alors naturellement le
developpement vers le nord.
L'on assistera progress ivement jusqu’en 1890 a la
construction d'immeubles en hauteur de sept a neuf
etages, souvent construit par superposition sur les
edifices de deux et trois etages existants.32

The banality of such a proposition meant that the design

concept could locate its originating moment with the first

wooden and stone constructions of the early 1820s. Like the

Merchants' Bank, the facades already in existence would be

extended vertically to heights of seven and ten storeys.

Quoting Gersovitz, Joshua Wolfe mentions that "the idea was to

consider separately the three-and-four storey buildings now

found on St. Jacques and St. Antoine and imagine how each of

them could 'grow' to twice that size."33 Other than the

Nordheimer building, six (sections of) original facades were

preserved. (Figs.26,27) A history of the demolished buildings

32Gersovitz cited in "Comite consultatif sur 1'implantation du

CCMM: Compte rendu de l'assemblee publique d' information tenue
le 19 Octobre 1987," in Rapport final du Comite: Annexes 4.
33Joshua Wolfe, "Trade centre revitalizes St. Jacques St. - at
a price," The Gazette (5 December 1987).
 101

remains to be written. In its preservation of facades, the

CCMM conforms to a local "facadism" phenomenon that is

predicated on a postmodernist sensibility vis-a-vis heritage

conservation.
Dominique Poulot' s study of the early moments of the
ideology of heritage mentions that the Frenchman, Frangois

Guizot, understood heritage "in sociological terms as public

opinion.1,34 "Facadism," as it was termed, became a subject

of considerable debate in the Montreal architectural milieu.

Some saw it as preservation tokenism, others as realistic

compromise. Heritage advocates critique this practice for its

pretension to represent the conservation of buildings; in

actuality, exterior fragments are preserved, not buildings.35

I would like to insist however on Poulot's mention of

public opinion and relate this to Habermas' notion of

publicity, and in particular, the "representative publicity"

of the baroque rather than the bourgeois publicity of civil

society which replaced it.35 Lefebvre mentions that the

facade has always been a measure of prestige and power.

Developed in coordination with perspective, it constitutes a

symmetry that extends the interior of a space with an

34Dominique Poulot, "The Birth of Heritage: ’le moment

Guizot'," Oxford Art Journal 11:2 (1988) 44.
35See for example, some of the essays in Bryan Demchinsky, ed.
Grassroots, Grevstones, and Glass Towers (Montreal: Vehicule
Press, 1991) .
36See Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public
Sphere.
 102

exterior, admitting certain things to the realm of the visible

and others to obscurity.37 In contrast to the public sphere

of civil society, the representative publicity of the

aristocracy positions the public as spectators of pageantry

and display. Despite Habermas' thesis that late capitalist

society is undergoing a process of refeudalization, I think

that we could recognize in contemporary forms of publicity

(public relations, advertising, marketing) some of the

features of representative publicity mixed with residual

elements of the bourgeois public sphere's division of private
and public realms. The facades of the CCMM are unquestionably

signs, signs of history and tradition, as well as signs of

power and prestige. The curtain wall's modernist self-

referentiality does not satisfy the postmodern taste for neo­

conservative ostentation. The facade of the suburban home

comes back to the city. Contemptful of "public opinion," the

managerial class tinkers with the historical fabric only to

privatize its possessions - these cannot even be considered

collective possessions - and to flaunt these in a promotional
display.38

37Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 99.

38For a discussion of the liberal philosophical aspects of
heritage as "collective possessions," see Richard Handler's
"On Having a Culture: Nationalism and the Preservation of
Quebec's 'Patrimoine'," in George W. Stocking, Jr., Obiects
and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture (Madison:
The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985) 192-217.
 103

As I have argued, the promoters of the CCMM wished not

only to initiate conservation efforts, but also to capitalize

on those features that would be used to market the Centre. As

such, only certain aspects of the past could be used as

promotional material. The resultant historicism of the

Centre’s design and presentationism are evident. An obvious

example can be gleaned from the Hotel's sales pitch: "La

rencontre d'un riche passe et d’un confort moderne juste aux

portes du Vieux-Montreal." As with Marx in the Eighteenth

Brumaire, Benjamin described the means by which the "present

rulers" cloaked themselves with the symbolic accoutrements of

the past. Just as neo-classicism was used to legitimize the

new bourgeois hegemony of the late eighteenth century, the

language of early liberalism has come to be used by the

managers of late capitalism's command economy. Witness the

propagandistic emphasis on entrepreneurialism at a time when

the interests of the 'petites et moyennes entreprises' are

increasingly sacrificed to those of the multinationals. The
CCMM and its symbolic revival of late Victorian liberal values
participates in this historicist tendency typical of
conservative (populist) postmodernism. Having been so obvious

in this undertaking, however, the signs of its operation

remain visible and its symbolic half-life all the more easily

exhausted.
The European history of the site circumscribed by the CCMM

begins with the construction of a palisade fortification in

 104

the late seventeenth century. A stone-faced rampart was then

built in the first half of the eighteenth century only to be

demolished in the early nineteenth century. It is not my

intention to repeat the social history of the fortifications

but merely to signal the fact that the traces of its presence

on the site of the CCMM have contributed to the Centre' s

present symbolic value.39 In the early nineteenth century,

the 'ruelle des Fortifications,' which bisects the block from

east to west, was called the 'ruelle des Glacis ou des

Fortifications. ' This alludes to the fact that at the time of

the stone fortifications, the 'glacis' section of the defense

system ended somewhere on the site now covered by the CCMM.

Archaeological studies undertaken by Ethnoscop Inc. confirm

the approximate location of the fortifications in relation to

the present site. The study shows how the topography and

consequent developments have affected the contours of the

present built environment.“° According to early maps

(Chaussegros de Lery, 1725/Charland, 1803), a powder magazine

was located in the number VI bastion which would have covered

the front half of the area occupied by the Merchants' Bank,

390n the social history of the fortifications, see Monique

Poirier, The Fortifications of Montreal 1717-1744: The
Development and Implementation of the Plan M.A. Thesis
(Montreal: Concordia University, Dept, of Art History, 1991);
Phyllis Lambert and Alan Stewart, eds. Opening the Gates of
Eighteenth-Century Montreal CCA (Cambridge: The MIT Press,
1992).

"Ethnoscop, Quadrilatere McGill, Saint-Jacgues, Saint-Pierre,

Saint-Antoine, Montreal: Etude du potentiel archeologigue
(Montreal: Devencore, 1987).
 105

Nordheimer and Campbell buildings. (Figs.28,29) The vaults

located in the basement of the Nordheimer led to the

hypothesis that they could have formed part of a powder

magazine or an extension of the fortifications of some sort.

It was generally agreed upon that they could have been built

with materials remaining from the demolition of the

fortifications. Further studies by Ethnoscop concluded that

the vaults were dated 1825-1920, and however impressive, were

likely used by merchants as storage rooms and as strong

foundations for the stone building.41 These vaults were

eventually converted by the CCMM architects into three dining

areas with wine cellar.42

Added to the architectural facadism and the historical

link with the fortifications, another feature of the CCMM

makes its historic!zing logic all the more transparent. This

particular feature narrows and specifies the context of the

Berlin Wall fragment display. Covering the entire length of

the 'ruelle des Fortifications' and bridging the two halves of

41Ethnoscop, Sondages archeologigues: Edifice Nordheimer, Site

BiF~i —39 (Montreal: Devencore, 1988); Ethnoscop, Surveillance
archeologigue des forages: guadrilatere McGill, Saint-Pierre,
St-Antoine, St-Pierre (Montreal: Devencore, 1988). The
conclusions were supported by archaeologist Jean Belisle.
42Ingrid Peritz, "Dark vaults in old city a historical riddle,"
The Gazette (21 January 1988); Annabelle King, "Centuries-old
stone vaults under new hotel get fresco lift," The Gazette (22
November 1991). Despite evidence to the contrary, CCMM and
Hotel publicity continues to promote the idea that the vaults
were part of the fortifications.
 106
the Centre is a massive glass arcade. The developers recycled

this old service lane and refinished it with a brick walkway.

On the ground floor, shops and restaurants animate what the

promoters describe as an agora or public place. (Fig.30,31,32)

Fortification Lane represents the structural axis of the
Centre and was its distinguishing feature even in the early

planning stages. The ironic fact that a public street was

privatized only to be made public once again has not been lost

on commentators. But this is partially accurate as the space

can only be described as pseudo-public.
Like its nineteenth-century precursors, the CCMM arcade is

a glass-covered passage lined with shops and businesses. It

is a privately owned public place which offers luxury goods,

protection from the elements and is an object of building

speculation.43 The Centre's arcade is typical of contemporary

examples found in shopping malls such as the Montreal Eaton

Centre, but its nineteenth-century sources can be found

throughout Europe and North America. (Figs.33,34)

Architectural historian J.F. Geist describes the early

importance of the arcade for the new public sphere of the

liberal economic system. He writes,

In the time of its conception the arcade was home to
luxury and fashion. It offered to the bourgeois public
in all its various guises - the flaneur, the bohemian,
the boulevardier - the opportunity to display itself to
the world. It presented the myriad products of a

“For a detailed architectural history of the arcade, see

Johann Friedrich Geist, Arcades: The History of a Building
Type (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1983).
 107

blossoming luxury industry for gazing, buying, flaunting,

and consuming. The public served by the arcade felt at
home in the artificial lighting of the theatres, cafes,
restaurants, bars - and glass-covered arcades.44

In their monumental and gigantic phase (1860-1900) arcades

became a means for cities to signal that they had "arrived" as

cosmopolitan centres. As such arcades might have had a

similar function as today's World Trade Centres. Walter

Benjamin gave the arcades the dubious honour of figuring as

the emblematic subject for his collection of facts and

fragments on nineteenth-century industrial culture.45

According to Buck-Morss, Benjamin saw the arcades as mythic

Ur-spaces, the original buildings of industrial culture and

the precursors of the International Style.4® With their

decline and ruin, so goes the bourgeois social utopia of

happiness through mass production. Benjamin argued that it is

the nostalgia they evoked that made them the nursing homes of
the utopian impulse.47

Pristinely finished, and built as a centre of power, the

arcade of the CCMM can hardly be compared to the decrepid

arcades of Europe that Benjamin and the surrealists found so

"Geist, 114.
"The arcade is a central figure in his "Paris, Capital of the
Nineteenth Century," in Peter Demetz, ed. Reflections: Essays,
Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings (New York: Schocken,
1978). See also: Rob Shields, Lifestyle Shopping: The Subject
of Consumption (London: Routledge, 1992) and Keith Tester, ed.
The Flaneur (London: Routledge, 1994).

"Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing.

"Buck-Morss, "City as Dreamworld and Catastrophe."
 108

fascinating. In its heroic giganticism, the Centre's arcade

constitutes the continuation of the project of urban

phantasmagoria, holding out the promise of progress through

consumption and production. In its early stages it was

envisioned as a showcase for parading Quebec's leading edge

technology. At best, the CCMM arcade garners an "Orange"

prize, offering aesthetic solutions to the problems of the

city. In my study of the CCMM and of the function of the

redevelopment of Old Montreal, I have often been compelled to

agree with some of the early marxist critiques of

postmodernism, however economistic they may be. There is one

issue in particular which deserves focus, and that is the

Centre's insularity, its hermetic self-sufficiency. This

insularity is dissimulated in the transparency of the glass

arcade space and in the perambulating public which animates

the ruelle - this parade of people in the "public space" of

the arcade is the real public art of the CCMM.

Frederic Jameson' s critique of Portman' s Bonaventure Hotel
was correct in its disparagement of postmodern architecture's

aspiration to spatial control.48 Mike Davis extended

Jameson's critique to a discussion of the links between the

fortress function of new buildings with the "cordoning off" of

"downtown financial districts, and other zones of high

48Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of

Late Capitalism, 39-44.
 109
property value, from inner city neighbourhoods."49 Without

levelling the distinctions between cities like Los Angeles and

Montreal, I would nevertheless argue that places like the CCMM

cater primarily to the downtown salariat. I contend that

access to the Centre is symbolically modulated, restricted.

One of the principle aspects of the CCMM arcade' s

insularity comes from the fact that it is connected by its

metro entrance to the underground city. It is worth noting

the allusions made to the Centre's parallel importance with

Place Ville-Marie since the latter inaugurated much of

Montreal's underground development. The Centre's hermeticism

is furthered by its access via the Bonaventure and Ville-Marie

expressways. Another issue is the Centre's effect on the

animation of the sector of Old Montreal in which it is

located. Like most office complexes, it provides no signs of

life "after hours." Pedestrians unfamiliar with the site have

few welcome signs to respond to. The interior space may

appear public, and this has been enough to spur applause for

its "bold new design," but the CCMM's general function is not.

A sort of exclusivity and kitsch ostentation also

characterizes the interior space. This reading is encouraged

by the addition of a baroque statue and large black granite

fountain that occupy the entire space of the courtyard

belonging to the Power Corporation. The courtyard is

’’Mike Davis, "Urban Renaissance and the Spirit of

Postmodernism," New Left Review #151 (May/Jun 1985) 111.
 110

demarcated by lavish lamp posts. The baroque sculpture of the

goddess Amphitrite was purchased by the president of Power

Corporation from a French decorator. As a decontextualized

artefact, it flies in the face of the Centre's sanctimonious

promotion of heritage conservation.50

Other features have added to the textual interpretation of

the space as prohibitive and I would attribute to these a

historicist license. Because the street is linked with the

history of the fortifications, the CCMM as a representational

space, can readily lend itself to design features combining

militarism and baroque ostentation. A clear sign of this

sensibility is evident in the style of the interior gate which

subtly fills the space with a soft but menacing

interpellation: this is private property. The fortress

function of the Centre is also semiotically inscribed in the
roof design of the Inter-Continental Hotel. Offering no great
architectural qualities other than its choice and layout of

brick material, the hotel is capped in a false mansard roof

with a turret (which lights up at night). Recalling the CPR

chain of hotels that dotted the Canadian landscape at the turn

of the century, the new Inter-Continental Hotel unashamedly

appropriates the CPR hotels' appropriation of sixteenth­

century French chateau idioms. These playful and ironic, yet

soSee the two articles by Jean-Pierre Bonhomme: "L'atrium du

Centre de commerce mondial est digne des plus grandes
metropoles," La Presse (1 November 1991) and "Une Amphitrite
greco-frangaise au Centre de commerce mondial," La Presse (6
November 1991).
 Ill
still communicative signs are trademarks of conservative

postmodernism. Discussing similarly crass displays, Mike

Davis states dryly:

These current designs for fortified skyscrapers indicate
a vogue for battlements not seen since the great armoury
boom that followed the Labour Rebellion of 1877. In so
doing, they also signal the coercive intent of
postmodernist architecture in its ambition, not only to
homogenize buildings, but rather to polarize it into
radically antagonistic spaces.51

Fittingly, the hotel mostly caters to the international class

of business people that the Centre was designed to service.

But what does its 26-storey intrusion into the fabric of Old

Montreal and its immodest use of the chateau style say to

local residents?
To ask such a question is to make a claim on the ideology

of the public. This same ideology, though, disavows the

differences and particularities that disrupt the seamlessness

of the concept of the unified liberal public. The CCMM makes

use of the neutralizing concept of "public space" in order to

cover up its exclusionary performance. Its publicity brochure

"Le CCMM: Un monde nouveau" reads: "Ouvert sur le quartier,

sur la ville et sur le monde, le Centre de commerce mondial de

Montreal n'en forme pas moins un microcosme presque
autosuffisant." As a representational space, then, the Centre

would seem to be permeated with a self-sufficiency and

insularity that are largely determined by its approved uses
and codes of appearance and behaviour. The public features of

51Davis, 113.
 112

the site help confirm this function. From the interior

balconies and bay windows, the workers of high finance can

look benevolently down onto a stream of passersby that may or

may not be working in this space- As a structural element of

the design, the transient and perambulating "public" functions

as spectacle and as witness to the representative publicity of

the guests and occupants of the Centre.

Identity would seem to be out of place in contemporary

time/space. Indeed the particularities of identity and

difference are often mustered and played out against the

homogenizing force of technological rationality. As Harold

Innis showed, the paradoxical tension between such forces are

actually productive of hegemonic or economic structures of

capitalist exchange, circulation and competition. At the

CCMM, technology figures prominently as a marketing feature.

The physical space and facilities provided to its users are

enhanced by an "electronic bazaar" offering WTC computer links

to over 400,000 businesses, video conferencing, and access to

a gamut of high-tech fiber optic computer systems.52 More

than just a selling point, these features respect the ideology

of functionalism - a useful alibi for the abandonment of

various social reforms including urban, fiscal and global

reform.

S2Ronald Lebel, "$160—million World Trade Centre is

inaugurated," The Gazette (7 April 1992).
 113

The new digital telecommunications technologies also

figure in the spatialization of social relations. These

technological tools enhance the CCMM's international mandate;

the Centre itself is designed as a tool. O'Brien termed it a

"spaceship for international commerce," an appropriate

metaphor for an age of increasingly deterritorialized trade
agreements. Michel de Certeau has shown how places are

related through relationships of force. An example of what de

Certeau called a "proper place," the CCMM is ambiguously and

"strategically" sited as a centre of power and an exchange

station for mobile capital. De Certeau writes:

I call a "strategy" the calculus of force-relationships

which becomes possible when a subject of will and power
(a proprietor, an enterprise, a city, a scientific
institution) can be isolated from an "environment." A
strategy assumes a place that can be circumscribed as
proper (propre) and thus serve as the basis for
generating relations with an exterior distinct from it
(competitors, adversaries, "clienteles," "targets," or
"objects" of research). Political, economic, and
scientific rationality has been constructed on this
strategic model.53
As an illustration of the confrontational and strategic
positioning of internationalizing business, I would like to

refer to an image I found on one of the trade floors in the

Centre. It is an advertisement by the Quebec Foreign Ministry

seen on the back cover of a trade magazine. The image depicts

a businesswoman holding a globe. (Fig.35) The caption reads:

Le monde est petit quand on voit grand: L1 abolition des

frontieres commerciales met le monde a notre portee,

S3Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1984, 1988) xix.
 114

multiple les occasions d'affaires. De nouveaux marches

s'ouvrent... plus que jamais accessibles aux entreprises
qui voient grand! Le Ministere des Affaires
internationales soutient activement les PME dans leur
conquete des marches etrangers...54

The technological advantage of a base in the CCMM affords

businesses the newest forms of mastery over spatial distance.

Conquest is of course the word that garners the most

contextual and historical resonance. I would insist on this

detail as the Centre is located on the site of the

fortifications and as the designers of the Centre are so

unabashed and insistent on historicism as a representational

modality.

Beyond what I have already mentioned about postmodernism,

I would add to the CCMM's symbolic activity an information

aesthetic. Without reducing the site to textual analysis, I

would argue that the Centre's multiplicity of reference points

and variety of design and architectural finishes consciously

produce the idea of spatio-temporal dislocation. Ironically,

this is called contextualism and is supposedly fused with

heritage conservation. What is actually being preserved is

the information that these auratic bits and pieces of history

can still manufacture. The information aesthetic produces a

spurious sense of belonging and lends buildings little long­

term viability. Heritage to harvest and publicize.

5<La Revue Exportations Quebec: le magazine des PME

exportatrices 1:2 (November/December 1995) back cover. It is
unclear whether the woman holding the globe is posed as
businesswoman, assistant or representative of the Ministry.
The advertisement draws interest with this ambiguity.
 115

The globalizing function of the CCMM contradicts its

purported architectural concept - its insertion into the

historical fabric of the city. But perhaps this is not a

contradiction but an inevitable product of the relation of

spaces across different scales. In keeping with materialist

philosophy, I have argued for the understanding of space as a

social relation. The CCMM is a particular type of social

space. Its construction has implications for our collected

memory (Young) as well as for Montreal's economic relations

abroad and at home. It is my view that the CCMM as context

for the Berlin Wall fragment display must be recognized not

only abstractly or in idealist language, but also as a

representational space which is produced by and which produces

social practices. The Wall fragment installation, while open

to interpretation and appropriation, reinforces the

communicational rhetoric of the Centre as a place image and as

a working site for the reproduction of neo-liberal trade.

 CONCLUSION

A materialist study is concerned with the content of

history, not with just the narrative and additive filling up

of homogeneous empty time. I have argued against idealist

methods and epistemologies and as such have contested the

prospect of a "proper" setting for the display-of the Montreal

fragment - my quarrel is rather with the production of such a

display and with the demands made of public art as a

representational imperative. By examining the aesthetic

interest of the Wall for the "violent" painters of Berlin neo­

expressionism, the transformation of the Wall into a post­

graffiti canvas and tourist destination, its eventual

dismantling and sale for souvenir consumption, and finally

(for the time being) its use as diplomatic memorial object, I

have insisted that history is pertinent to the reception of

such material artefacts. Because the meaning of an object is

never bound to any particular moment in its production as a

social relation, it can therefore be contextualized within new

and changing circumstances of signification. In the arcade of

the pseudo-public CCMM, on the former site of Montreal's

fortifications, and in a social spatialization that makes use

of postmodern historicist encodings to legitimize a neo­

colonial discourse of global capitalist hegemony, the Wall

fragment display reads like an overture to "End of History"

pop ideology. Welcome to one of the nodal points in the

deterritorialized "Wall street" of the New World Order.

 117

To return to the object's physical structure, the

readymade understcinding of the Wall (as it is displayed as

Wall fragment) conforms to its two sides, one bearing graffiti

work, and the other, a deadly white. The Wall was the

embodiment of a binary ideology of East versus West. Under

the sign of this binary logic, and from a Western perspective,

the Cold War constructed a dichotomy of liberal Self and

communist Other. It pitted the world's superpowers in a

terminal paradox, each side attributing to its "'negative

twin' the features and manners of a phantasmic character."1

Slavoj 2i2ek describes how the collapse of the socialist

regimes in Eastern Europe obsessed the Western viewer. What

"fascinates the Western gaze," he writes,

is the re-invention of democracy. It is as if democracy,

which in the West shows increasing signs of decay and
crisis, lost in bureaucratic routine and publicity-style
election campaigns, is being rediscovered in Eastern
Europe in all its freshness and novelty. The function of
this fascination is thus purely ideological: in Eastern
Europe the West looks for its own lost origins....2

Arthur and Marilouise Kroker suggest a similar interpretation

of the events of 1989, explaining the spectacle of history-in-

the-making in post-structural terms as a "bimodern" moment of

alterity in which capitalism and communism trade places:

Victor Tupitsyn, "East-West Exchange: Ecstasy of (Mis)-

Communication," in David A. Ross, ed. Between Spring and
Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism The
Institute of Contemporary Art (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990)
83.
2Slavoj 2i2ek, "Eastern Europe's Republics of Gilead," New
Left Review #183 (Sep/Oct 1990) 50.
 118
communism now converting to "primitive capitalism" and

capitalism centralizing its bureaucratic processes in "the

political form of the command economy of late communism."3

The two systems, however, are not so neatly and mutually

reflective. The reunification of Germany and the opening of

the East European markets was staged and carried out as a

conquering, a "Pax Romana." In the early 1990s, the regular

flow of East Europeans into the malls and markets of West

Berlin, eagerly buying fruits and electronic goods, confirmed

the Western fantasy that civil liberalism had triumphed over

its "barbarian" other.4 If East and West had once stood in

mutual relation of Self and Other, the collapse of the iron

curtain had brought the two into a new relation. Ex­

communists were made painfully aware of their uneven status

vis-a-vis the hegemonic West. Most of the latter's symbolic

tokens of welcoming were underwritten by gloating and a will

to humiliate the defeated enemy. John Borneman has suggested

that after the dismantling of the communist State, East

Germans have undergone a sort of colonialization in which

retraining for a competitive world market reinforces their

3Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, "Introduction" in their edited

text, Ideology and Power in the Age of Lenin in Ruins
(Montreal: New World Perspectives, 1991) x.
4Michael Wark discusses the role played by the media in the
staging of this event/scene in "Europe's Masked Ball: East
Meets West at the Wall," New Formations #12 (Winter 1990).
Wark comments on the crisis of liberalism caused by the end of
the Cold War. Cynical liberalism asks: "what will become of
us without barbarians?" (p.38).
 119

subaltern status in relation to "the model civil society of

West Germany."5 As far as Westerners are concerned, the ex­

communist, in this new unthreatening version, confirms a self­

image. Margarita Tupitsyn laments what she calls a relapse

into orientalism wherein the East is described in the Western

media in a narrative genre similar to Victorian exotica and

travel journalism; "scholarly impartiality is underwritten by

zealotry.1,6
The consumption of Wall fragments also falls within this

neo-colonialist framework. Jonathan Rutherford says of

cultural difference that according to the commodity relations

of transnational capital, difference ceases to signify power

relations. "Otherness," he states, "is sought after for its

exchange, its exoticism and the pleasures, thrills and

adventures it can offer."7 Likewise, Dean MacCannell writes

that "the encounter between tourist and 'other' is the scene

of a shared utopian vision of profit without exploitation".8

This is evident in the spoilage of the Berlin Wall, its

5John Borneman, "Time-Space Compression and the German

Continental Divide in German Subjectivity," New Formations #21
(Winter 1994) 112.
6Victor Tupitsyn cites Margarita Tupitsyn, 91. For an example
of this type of presentation, see Priit J. Vesilind, "Berlin's
Ode to Joy," National Geographic 177:4 (April 1990) 105-133.

’Jonathan Rutherford, "A Place Called Home: Identity and the

Cultural Politics of Difference," in Rutherford, ed. Identity,
Community, Culture, Difference (London: Lawrence & Wishart,
1990) 11.
8Dean MacCannell, "Cannibalism Today," in his Empty Meeting
Grounds: The Tourist Papers (New York: Routledge, 1992) 28.
 120

transformation, into reminders of a difficult history, no

doubt, but also into curiosities and novelty items for the

anti-climactic detente between East and West. As trophies and

cultural treasures, Wall fragments are semiotically

overdetermined. Like the cultural artefacts found in

ethnographic collections, they occupy a metonymic relation to

their place of origin, but remain decontexualized, or rather,

recontextualized under specific conditions, within the

framework of the collector's world.9

To focus on the physical character of the Wall fragment is

also to recognize that this very fragmentedness is in stark

contrast to the perception of the Berlin Wall and its original

overbearing continuity. The CCMM display is of the fragmented

Wall, suggesting the obsolescence of borders and reaffirming

the symbolic and actual function of the site in an era of

global free trade. Underwriting this hopeful vision of a

brave new world of post-Fordist, post-industrial consensus, is

a repressed history which begins in Montreal with the

expropriation, in the late seventeenth century, of the land

occupied by the Iroquois and which continues in the present in

the economic discrepancy between North and South.

’Moira McLoughlin, "Of Boundaries and Borders: First Nations'

History in Museums," Canadian Journal of Communication 18:3
(Summer 1993) 367. See also James Clifford, "On Collecting
Art and Culture," in his The Predicament of Culture:
Twentieth-Century Ethnography (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1988) 215-251.
 121

This vision of the future-present is most readily

described as the (post-war against Iraq) New World Order.10

(Not surprisingly, Brian Mulroney contextualized the reception

of the Ottawa segment in relation to the Iraq war and to

peacekeeping efforts in Yugoslavia. ) Now that the communist

system has collapsed, there is no need to rethink our own

political structures, or so goes the story according to one

version of authoritarian realpolitik. A post-colonial

position views with horror the purported end of viable

ideological alternatives to free-market capitalism since the

rhetoric of the New World Order is hardly supportive of the

politics of place and difference.

Epitomizing this new political doctrine of the "end of

history" are the words of Francis Fukuyama, deputy director of

the US State Department policy planning staff in response to

the disintegration of political regimes in Eastern Europe. In
his bestselling book on political philosophy, The End of

History and the Last Man, Fukuyama writes:

Technology makes possible the limitless accumulation of

wealth, and thus the satisfaction of an ever-expanding
set of human desires. This process guarantees an
increasing homogenization of all human societies,
regardless of their historical origins and cultural
inheritances. All countries undergoing economic
modernization must increasingly resemble one smother:
they must unify rationally on the basis of a centralized
state, urbanize, replace traditional forms with
economically rational ones based on function and
efficiency, and provide for the universal education of

10For a critique of postmodern paranoia after the war against

Iraq, see Hal Foster, "Postmodernism in Parallax," October #63
(Winter 1993) 3-20.
 122

their citizens. Such societies have become increasingly-

linked with one another through global markets and the
spread of a universal consumer culture. Moreover, the
logic of modern natural science would seem to dictate a
universal evolution in the direction of capital.11

Fukuyama's view of a teleological evolutionism and the

inevitability of a homogeneous world culture is totalizing in

the extreme. Ironically, his diagnosis reflects similar

analyses coming from the left. Fukuyama states elsewhere:

The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident

first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic
alternatives to Western liberalism.... [T]his phenomenon
extends beyond high politics and can be seen also in such
diverse contexts as the peasants' markets and colour
television sets now omnipresent throughout China, the
cooperative restaurants and clothing stores opened in the
past year in Moscow, the Beethoven piped into Japanese
department stores, and the rock music enjoyed in Prague,
Rangoon, and Tehran alike. What we may be witnessing is
not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a
particular postwar history, but the end of history as
such: that is, the endpoint of mankind's ideological
evolution.12
In keeping with his cryogenized liberalism, or rather,

contemporary post-liberalism, Fukuyama rejects the concept of

group rights as an irrational aspect of liberal democracy.

Nationalism and ethnic identity are marginalized in his

opinion as "accidental and arbitrary by-product[s] of human

history. "13

“Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New
York: Avon Books, 1992) xv. This book draws on the writings
of Alexander Kojeve and pushes it to the level of
philosophical pragmatism. See Joseph McCamey, "Shaping Ends:
Reflections on Fukuyama," New Left Review #202 (Nov/Dec 1993)
37-53.

“Fukuyama cited in MacCannell, Empty Meeting Grounds, 62.

13Fukuyama, 201.
 123

Viewed within the optic of international high finance,

"end of history" theory is far from being a politics which

concerns itself with difference, identity, and community. In

my view, to position the Berlin Wall fragment in the CCMM is

to allow its informational power to be productive within these

frames of reference. This exceeds a historically sensitive

gesture of commemoration. To take a broader view of

globalization, I would surmise that the distinction between

East and West was ideologically useful for both systems as

they sought to marginalize poorer, "developing" countries

within their respective spheres of influence. Fukuyama's
discussion elides these problematics of power relations. What

then, are the links between postmodernism, postcolonialism,

postcommunism, and "end of history" theory as the end of the

dialectic of enlightenment? The collapsing of normative

categories that distinguishes postmodernism's epistemological

force can occasionally lend itself to emancipatory projects,

but it can also overlook the disciplinary workings of power

and hegemony. As Nelly Richards comments, postmodernism

"defends itself against the destabilizing threat of the

'other' by integrating it back into a framework which absorbs

all differences and contradictions."14 Echoes of Fukuyama.

Indeed, postmodernism often collapses centre and margin, only

to neutralize the distinctness and particularity of

14Nelly Richards, "Postmodernism and Periphery," Third Text #2

(Winter 1987-1988) 11.
 124

difference. This is not to say that these workings are ever

entirely successful, but merely to identify the

assimilationist method of its anti-foundational ism. One
cannot exclude from the postmodern focus on culture and

aesthetics, issues concerning technology and the instrumental

legacy of enlightenment rationalism. Again, I would suggest

that the contradictions of modernity must be assumed in all

discussions of postmodernism, and this, so that theory is not

bestowed cultural value and validity in the same way that

technology and science were once made the "deus ex machina" of

a rapidly transforming European society.

With "end of history" theory, conservative postmodernism

enters the political philosophy arena. In a sardonic account

of end-of-the-millennium hyperbolism, artist Guillermo Gomez-

Pena addresses the politics of the New World (B)order:

This being the era of pusmodernity (the infected

modernity), all known political systems and economic
structures are dysfunctional and are being reformed,
replaced or destroyed. . . We are finally "hijos de la
chingada," or citizens of a borderless society.... In the
wake of the stormy changes in the ex-Soviet bloc, the
winds of "Gringostroika" have reached every corner of our
continent. This sweeping transformation even makes it
difficult to call this continent "ours," since the
difference between "us" and "them" are hardly discernable
any longer. Geo-political borders have faded away. Due
to the implementation of a "Free Raid Agreement,"... the
nations formerly known as Canada, the US and Mexico have
merged painlessly to create the "Federation of US
Republics." FUSR... The "First World and Third World,"
geo-political distinctions that are vestiges of an
outdated colonialist vocabulary, have completely
overlapped. The legendary US-Mexico border,
affectionately know as "The Tortilla Curtain,” no longer
exists. Pieces of the great "Tortilla" are now
sentimental souvenirs hanging on the kitchen walls of
 125

idiotic tourists.15
With regard to the Berlin Wall, which of course Gomez-Pena is

alluding to, we could perhaps understand in displays such as

the CCMM installation, a nostalgic desire for the good old

days of the Cold War when the quest for capitalist hegemony

could readily function as a solution to various communitarian

unfreedoms.
If memorials are images of loss and monuments signifiers

of victory, what does the CCMM display signify as a loss of

and a victory over?16 Is this victory not also that of the

theoretical dissimulation between antinomies such as us and

them, private and public, as well as construction and

destruction. On this last point, Richard Burt has made some

relevant statements. Burt states that "Eurotrash," as a

dialectical "tension between civilization, deterioration, and

ruination. . . has always been the origin and the telos of

European culture."17 This concept is visible in the liminal

image of the transformation of the former Berlin Wall death

zone into a construction site for the showcasing of the newest

“Guillermo Gomez-Pena, "The New World (B)order: A Work in

Progress," Third Text #21 (Winter 1992-1993) 71-72.
“These definitions of memorial and monument, quite different
from James Young's, are found in Lisa Yoneyama, "Memory
Matters: Hiroshima's Korean Bomb Memorial and the Politics of
Ethnicity," Public Culture 7:3 (Spring 1995) 499-527.

17Richard Burt, "'Degenerate "Art"': Public Aesthetics and the

Simulation of Censorship in Postliberal Los Angeles and
Berlin," in Burt, ed. The Administration of Aesthetics:
Censorship, Political Criticism, and the Public Sphere
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994) 249.
 126

multinational architecture. Despite Burt's emphasis on the

always already of linguistics, I would agree witti his emphasis

on the dialectical nature of the simultaneous staging of

expression with repression, of construction and destruction.

What are the politics of exhibition implicit in the CCMM

display? What social practices does such a display consign to

the dustbin of history and what practices does it imply for

the future-present?

What are the politics of the CCMM display as a monument to

the "end of history" and the celebration of a New World Order?

If postmodernism can be such a destabilizing vector of change,

what are we to make of all its apocalyptic meditations? Even

Jacques Derrida, the distinguished proponent of

deconstruction, is now calling attention to monumental

political issues. In his book on Marx, Derrida critiques "end

of history" theology for its premature embrace of actually-

existing democracy. Derrida lists ten of the most pressing

problems of the New World Order which, in his words, makes the
"euphoria of liberal-democratic capitalism resemble the

blindest and most delirious of hallucinations".18 These

include: structural unemployment, homelessness, economic war,

the inability to control the contradictions of the free

market, foreign debt, the arms industry and trade, nuclear

18Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the

Work of Mourning, & the New International trans- Peggy Kamuf
(New York: Routledge, 1994) 80.
 127

proliferation, inter-ethnic wars, the mafia and drug cartels,

and finally, the present state of international law.19 While

Derrida overlooks such concepts as patriarchy, Eurocentrism

and anthropocentrism, his book on Marx is nevertheless a

departure from the post-marxism made possible by theories such

as his own. In his ironic revision of Hegel and Marx, Derrida

refutes the possibility of an end to ideological reformation.

He writes:
At a time when a new world disorder is attempting to
install its... neo-liberalism, no disavowal has managed
to rid itself of all of Marx's ghosts. Hegemony still
organizes the repression and thus the confirmation of a
haunting.... [This] specter is the future, it is always
to come, it represents itself only as that which is to
come or come back. . .20
Derrida's intervention continues the critique of totalizing

theory, including the emphasis on History as guardian of

Truth. I would caution, however, against any fixed reading of

the postmodern condition, of what is to be done, and of what

can no longer be envisioned. In this thesis I have attempted

to outline some of the representational issues attending a

certain conception of the "public" and of the "public

monument." With regard to the Montreal Wall fragment, and in

relation to all forms of "publicity" in general, it is a

truism of any critical position that monumental and monolithic

overtures are no longer adequate and that multiple

perspectives need to be made visible and audible. If

19Derrida, 81-83.
20Derrida, 37-39.
 128

actually-existing democracy is found wanting in many respects,

no less can be said of actually-existing socialism. It is

with respect to the latter, however, and with the belief in

the emancipatory potential of critical and radical democratic

positions, that I view with great scepticism the meaning of

the display of the Berlin Wall fragment in the ’Centre de

commerce mondial de Montгёа1.'

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WOLFE, Joshua. "The Fagade Fad: Sometimes Saving Face
Isn't Enough." The Gazette (19 November 1988).
WOLFE, Joshua. "Political Will to Save the Queen's Hotel
Was Lacking." The Gazette (22 October 1988).
WOLFE, Joshua. "Trade Centre Revitalizes St. Jacques St. -
At a Price." The Gazette (5 December 1987).

WOLFE, Joshua. "Trade-Centre Plan Too Advanced for Major

Changes." The Gazette (12 December 1987).
WOLFE, Joshua. "World Trade Centre Fails to Fulfill Promise."
The Gazette (25 January 1992).
 Primary Sources

ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND PRIVACY: Public Works and Government

Services Canada, file #ATI960183/RM; Foreign Affairs and
International Trade Canada, file #A-3313.
ALLAN, E. Bruce. Architect, Le Groupe Arcop. Montreal.
Interview, 17 October 1996.

Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal: un monde nouveau.

Montreal: CCMM, 1994.

COADY, Bob. Graphic Design Artist, Shoreline Graphics.

Ottawa. Interview, 5 September 1996.
COMMUNAUTE URBAINE DE MONTREAL. Repertoire d'architecture
traditionnelle sur le territoire de la communaute
urbaine de Montreal: architecture industrielle. Montreal:
Service de la plannification du territoire, 1982.
COMMUNAUTE URBAINE DE MONTREAL. Repertoire d1 architecture
traditionnelle sur le territoire de la communaute
urbaine de Montreal: architecture militaire. Montreal:
Service de la plannification du territoire, 1982.
DUNTON, Nancy. Heritage Montreal. Montreal. Interview,
11 October 1996.

ETHNOSCOP. Quadrilatere McGill, Saint-Jacques, Saint-Pierre,

Saint-Antoine, Montreal: Etude du potentiel archeologique.
Montreal: Devencore, 1987.

ETHNOSCOP. Sondages archeoloqiques: Edifice Nordheimer, Site

BqFj-39. Montreal: Devencore, 1988.

ETHNOSCOP. Surveillance archeologique des forages:

quadrilatere McGill, Saint-Jacgues, St-Antoine, St-Pierre.
Montreal: Devencore, 1988.

Freedom Park. Arlington: Newseum, 1996. I would like to thank

Julie Leger for her internet/web research which led me to
this document and subject.
GALERIE PARK PALACE. Die Mauer: The Berlin Wall, Special
Auction (Saturday 23 June 1990, 21.00 Hours, Monte Carlo,
Hotel Metropole Palace. Berlin: LeLe Berlin Wall Verkaufs
- und Wirtschaftswerbung GmbH, 1990. I would like to thank
Cathleen Parry and Lysanne Thibodeau for making this item
available to me.
GAUTHIER, Helene. Service de I’urbanisme, Ville de Montreal.
Montreal. Interview, 11 December 1996.
 163

HERITAGE MONTREAL. Newspaper clippings dossier on the 'Centre

de commerce mondial de Montreal,' 1986 to present.

KLYMCHUK, Gisele. German-Canadian Cultural Association of

Manitoba. Winnipeg. Telephone Interview, February 1997.

La Revue Exportations 1:2 (Nov/Dec 1995).

Minutes of the City of Toronto City Council, Report No. 16,

8 July 1991. Queen's Park Archives and Protocol.
SERVICE DE LA CULTURE. Archival file #C920022/Mur de Berlin.

SIJPKES, Pieter. Professor in Architecture, McGill University.

Montreal. Interview, 20 March 1997.

THIBODEAU, Нё1ёпе. Agente de developpement culturel, Service

de la culture, Ville de Montreal. Montreal. Interview, 9
November 1995.

THOPMPSON, Paul. Officer, External Affairs and International

Trade Canada. Ottawa. Interview, September 1996.

VILLE DE MONTREAL. Art public. Montreal: Commission

d'initiative et de developpement culturels, 1989.

VILLE DE MONTREAL. L'art public a Montreal: plan d'action

de le Ville de Montreal. Montreal: Commission d'initiative
et de developpement culturels, 1989.
VILLE DE MONTREAL. Comite consultatif sur 1'implantation du
Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal: Rapport final du
Comite. Montreal: Ville de Montreal: 1987.
VILLE DE MONTREAL. Comite consultatif sur 1'implantation du
Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal: Rapport final du
Comite, Annexes. Montreal: Ville de Montreal, 1987.
Fig.l
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
 №61
Tcte
Thierry Noir/ graffiti anonyme
WaldemarstraBe
Certificat N" 250
Etat: Pcinture endommagee en
bas. aretes abimecs. beton ccaille
a la forurc de droitc
Lon er painting slightly damaged, edges
slightly broken, cement broken away near
the drilled hole on the right
Bemahtng unten leicht beschadigt. leichte
Kanrenbriiche. abgephttzter Beton an der
Bohrung rechts

№62
Visage jaune II i
element central j
Yellow Face II middle part :
Gelbcs Gesicht ll Mittelteil |
Kiddy Citny !
WaldemarstraBe !
Ccrtifieat N" 93 |
Etat: Pcinturcs ultdrieures tres .
bien conservees. brisure irregu-
licrc de I'aretc
I ’ery well preserved images, edge irregtdury |
broken on right \
Bemahtng sehr gut crhnlten. tmregel- *
mapiger Kantetihruch •

№63
Visage jaune I
element lateral droit avec tele carrec
Yellow Face I right part with square skull
Gelbes Gesicht I rechter Teil mil
Quadratschadcl
Kiddy Citny. graffiti anonyme
WaldemarstraBe
Certificat N” 92
Etat: Peintures ultcrieures tres
bien conscrvces. arete legercment
ebrechee a gauche
Very well preserved painted-over images
edge slightly broken on the left
Sehr gate Obennahingen. Icichter
Kantcnabbruch links.
Fig. 5
 argucu me ca>c oetore tne court ot Appeals pleaded guilty to grand larceny and filing ————• . ~~ .... ж»и|т*«>«и umn inwc
was hugging, kissing, laughing and basking on behalf of the nursing home operators. false business records, charges that earned goals."
m the aftermath of their legal victory yes* Attempts to reach Mr. Hollander for com­ a maximum jail sentence of II years. In­ The accord was the second to be an­
terday. New York State's highest court, the ment were unsuccessful. Hts lawyer did not stead of jail, however. Mr. Hollander was nounced since a tentative agreement on the
Court of Appeals, declared that the non* return a reporter’s telephone calls, and his
profit group that had run the home since home number is unlisted. Continued on Pace 84 ConttrtuedonPate Qi

Sale of Century!
Bits of Cold War,
Just$7an Ounce
By MICHEL MARRIOTT
It was bound to happen Two salesmen set up a
stand on Fifth Avenue yesterday selling what they
said were chunks of the Berlin wall — at $7 an ounce.
Braving wintry winds and skeptical New Yorkers,
the sellers. David Schwartz and Edmond Howar.
hawked the concrete at 5<ih Street as lunchtime
crowds pressed by. The display included a large color
photograph of a young West German man standing
near what appeared to be the recently breached 28-
year-oid wall and holding a slab of u
"He's part of our proof." said Mr Schwartz, a 27-
ycar-old (ormer television producer with Entertain­
ment Tonight. "He was here with us lor» while wear-
mg the same thing he’s wearing in the picture."
Each Comes In Its Own Zip-Top Bag
The man. a West German newsman whom Mr.
Schwartz would identify only as Mickey, brought 50
pounds of the concrete into New York on a flight from
Berlin on Monday. Mr. Schwartz said.
"We spent all night breaking it up." said Mr. Howar.
26. also a former TV producer. Actually, the two men
did much more. In what they said was an attempt to
"test market" the Berlin wail tor mass merchandis­
ing. the men typed out a history of the wall and pack­
aged the chunks in zip-top plastic bags.
Was it a triumph for the American way? Indeed.
Mr. Schwartz said that in two hours they sold $3,000
worth ot the concrete in different sizes, from $5 chips
to $20 chunks, all from the western side of the walL
They also said that they are negotiating with three
department stores and that they have 2.200 pounds of
the wall "ready to ship."
They hope to have the chips in stores by Christmas. Selling history on a street corner, David Schwartz offered what he said were pieces of the Berlin wall.

Holiday Tomorrow Suffolk Is Sued to Block Plans

The Thanksgiving holiday wilt be observed tomorrow. Here are holiday schedules.
For Subdivisions in Pine Barrens

Fig. 6
Fig.7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig.10
Fig. 11
Fig.12
Fig.13
Fig.14
Fig.15
Fig.16
Fig.17
Fig.19
Fig.20
A Condominium
in Old Montreal?

oj a generous
property tax credit
The City of Montreal offers a property tax credit of up to $10,000
to all buyers of a new residential unit in Old Montreal.

This tax credit is offered to the buyer who decides to either live in the unit,
or use it for rental income purposes. For more information (514) 872-0581

Ville de Montreal
Fig.22
тл е»
Fig.24
Fig.25
Intrnrar
Ruelle th fomTiGUiotb

Intenrar
L'rtiw du Centre
■le rummerre mondial

Roe Siint-JicqnM

Fig.26
Bor Saint-Antoine

Fig.27
Fig.28
 RUE SAIN Г - ANTOINE

Fig.29
Fig.30
Fig.31
Fig.32
Fig.33
Fig.34
8

L’abolition des frontieres commerciales nict le monde

a notre portee, multiplie les occasions d'affaires.
De nouveaux marches s’ouvrent... plus que jamais
accessibles aux entreprises qui voient grand !

'з Le Ministerc des Affaires internationales soutient

activement les PME dans leur conqucte des marches
etrangers en proposant, notamment : un inode
d’ernploi des marches etrangers, des sessions de
formation en commerce international, un reseau
de delegations quebecoises sur quatre continents,
le programme d’aide financiere a 1’exportation
APEX, Faeces a des foires et missions a 1’etranger
pour multiplier les contacts et occasions d’affaires.

Communiquez avec nos conseillers

en affaires internationales.

• Affaires internationales
V Quebec

Fig.35
 APPENDIX I
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS:
GERMANY, BERLIN and the BERLIN WALL 1945-1990

1943-1944: Berlin is occupied by the Allied forces

September 1944: London Protocol

July 1945: Potsdamer meeting; Berlin is split
according to traditional district
boundaries; Soviets control East Berlin;
France, Great Britain and the United
States control West Berlin; U.S. policy
is "containment"

1948: Reconstruction of West Berlin; "economic

miracle" leads to Marshall Plan
Spring 1948: Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia
June 1948: New Western currency for West Berlin

23 June 1948: Berlin Blockade; Soviets restrict land

access to West Berlin
26 June 1948: U.S. General Clay leads Western Airlift

28 June 1948: New currency for Soviet zone

8 May 1948: Land access restored

1949: Walter Ulbricht, president of GDR, with

its capital in East Berlin; Konrad
Adenauer, Chancellor of FRG, with its
capital in Bonn

1950s: Berlin = hotbed of Cold War espionage; East

German emigrants fleeing to the West
1952: West turns down Stalin's peace offer to
unify a neutral Germany

1953: By this time, many of the Soviet-block

countries are separated by an "Iron
Curtain" of barbed wire, minefields, armed
guards, etc.; Iron Curtain stretches from
the Baltic to the Black Sea
June 1953: Suppression of workers' uprisings in East
Berlin; continuing occupation by Soviet
Army
 200

1955: Division of Germany is finalized; FRG is

granted independence; GDR declared a
sovereign State by the Soviets; the two
divide into NATO and Warsaw Pact camps

1956: Khrushchev denounces Stalin

1957: Fleeing of GDR made a criminal offence

November 1958: "Khrushchev Ultimatum": orders Allies out

of Berlin

1960s: Cold War: Soviet rhetoric of anti­

imperialism, Western rhetoric of freedom

1961: Berlin Crisis; superpower confrontation

and refugee emigration from East to West
Berlin; J.F.Kennedy inaugurated U.S.
President

March 1961: Ulbricht seeks approval from Warsaw Pact

to close the border, Erich Honecker will
be given the responsibility of building
the Berlin Wall/border

17 April 1961: CIA fails invasion of Cuba at Bay of Pigs

July 1961: By this date, 300,000 Germans flee to the

West monthly

25 July 1961: Kennedy affirms that West Berlin will be

protected

12 August 1961: At midnight, on a holiday weekend,

construction of Berlin Wall begins; Aug 13,
news agencies denounce Western deception
and blackmail; Wall is presented by East
Berlin as a contribution to world peace;
Aug 13, 800 make last chance escape to
the West
Berlin Wall: 12km of actual wall, 137km of
fencing; trains, subway lines and roads are
blocked; barbed wire is slowly replaced by
8’ cinderblock wall and topped with barbed
wire; 100m free fire zone

Official title: Border Security System for

the National Frontier West; a.k.a. Anti­
Fascist Protection Wall
14 August 1961: West does nothing, prefers wall to war
 201

16 August 1961: Willy Brandt addresses 250,000 West

Berliners; denounces American inaction

27 October 1961: Armoured vehicles face off at Checkpoint

Charlie
1962: End of Berlin Crisis

1963: West Berliners allowed to visit families

until 1966 modifications

26 June 1963: Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a

Berliner) speech

1964-1976: Gradual replacement of first Wall with

second, pre-calculated Wall: pre-cast slabs
are used and topped with cylindrical
piping; death strip is enclosed by an inner
electrified fence and outfitted with
concrete watch towers and bunkers, lights,
guard dogs, anti-tank spikes and ditch,
trip-wire devices and anti-personnel mines

1966: Brandt elected Chancellor; eventually

presents his "Ostpolitik" which will be
criticized for normalizing the division
of Germany

1968: Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia

late 1960s: East Berliners watch West Berlin TV,

which is officially tolerated after 1974;
1980s GDR installs cable; ironically, West
Berlin news makes the free world appear
uncontrolled and chaotic; Western rhetoric
about East block countries frustrates East
Berliners; the effect is a stabilization of
the division

1970s: West Berlin becomes centre for disaffected

youth, particularly those wishing to escape
military duty; Bonn government injects much
capital into arts and culture; new left
radicalism opposed to complacent self­
interest of West German middle class
1971: Ostpolitik: Quadripartite Agreement
confirms the status of West Berlin, an
outpost of West Germany inside the GDR;
restoration of telephone links; one-day
visas granted to West Berliners; 40,000
exit visas per year
 202

1973: GDR accepted to UNESCO and opens diplomatic

relations with the West, i.e. France and
Great Britain
1976-1989: Third and final Wall construction: Pre­
fabricated L-shaped slabs replace the
previous western face of the Berlin Wall
system; despite the fact that it remains
within the western border, its smoothness
makes it a compelling surface for graffiti
writers; height is now 3.6m; concrete is
steel-reinforced and of a high density
containing high levels of asbestos; 111km
of the entire 163-170km border is walled by
1987; 37km runs through housing districts,
30km through wooded areas, 24km through
waterways, 17km through industrial sectors,
and the remaining 55km through rails,
fields and marshlands

1980s: Revival of Cold War confrontation with

advent of Cold Warriors Thatcher and
Reagan; arms race and star wars respond to
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; illegal
migrations of East Germans through Hungary
and Czechoslovakia - about 3,000 a year

1982-1989: Graffiti artists and neo-expressionist

painters help make the Berlin Wall West
Berlin's most notable tourist attraction;
the Wall comes to be known as the eighth
wonder of the world; West Berliners
generally display a blase attitude about
the Wall; Checkpoint Charlie Museum records
and organizes activities concerning Wall
art

1984: New strategy for exiles: squatting in

West German Embassies in Eastern Europe
1985: Mikhail Gorbachev is new Soviet Leader;
will pursue democratizing reforms under his
"Glasnost" and "Perestroika" policies; will
oppose Honecker

1986: Border guards' "shoot to kill" orders are

reportedly repealed - the original order
was constitutionalized in 1982

1987: Reagan visits West Berlin; met with

protests
 203

January 1989: 35-Nation Conference on Security and

Cooperation in Europe; U.S. Secretary of
State George Shultz calls for the
dismantling of the Wall

August 1989: East Germans cross to Austria through

Hungarian border, 200 a day; eventually,
Hungarian authorities stop returning
escapees

19 August 1989: Honecker declares that the Wall will

stand for another 100 years

S eptember 1989: Monday night services in Leipzig; rise of

the New Forum demonstrators who favour
socialist reforms but not reunification
with capitalist West

10 September 1989: Hungary opens border to the West; in two

weeks 20,000 East Germans travel West

7 October 1989: 40 year anniversay of GDR; demonstrations

in Leipzig, East Berlin and Dresden

9 October 1989: 70,000 demonstrate in Leipzig

18 October 1989: Honecker is replaced by Egon Krenz

3 November 1989: Czechoslovakia opens its borders

4 November 1989: 500,000 people demonstrate in

Alexanderplatz to protest the slow pace of
reform; Christa Wolf makes speech on the
revitalization of language

7-8 November 1989: GDR government and Politburo resign;

exodus and demonstrations continue

9 November 1989: Egon Krenz institutes freedom of travel;

12pm, border between East and West is
opened; symbolic end of the Berlin Wall

November 9 is a notable date in German

history: it is also the date of the 1918
abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the
beginning of the Weimar Republic, of
Hitler's failed Munich putsch of 1923, and
the 1938 night of broken glass
(KristalInacht) which witnessed the
destruction of Jewish property and the
murder of about 100 jews; it is also the
date of Nazi victory speeches during WWII
 204

17 November 1989: New East Berlin cabinet promises reforms

18 November 1989: Kohl calls for German confederation

3 December 1989: Krenz resigns

18 March 1990: Elections in East and West signal a

desire for unification

1 July 1990: Monetary integration, West buys out

Eastern currency; hign inflation in the
East

3; October 1990: German unification; federal government is

to move its capital from Bonn to Berlin
over a twelve year period, beginning in
1991

SOURCES:

BAKER, Frederick. "The Berlin Wall: production, preservation

and consumption of a 20th-century monument." Antiquity
Vol.67 (December 1993) 709-733.
GRANT, R.G. The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall. London:
Bison Group, 1991.
SMITH, Ken. Berlin: Coming In From the Cold. London: Hamish
Hamilton, 1990.
 APPENDIX II
DISMANTLING AND DISPERSAL OF THE BERLIN WALL
1) CHRONOLOGY 2) SOUVENIRS 3) MONUMENTS

1 - CHRONOLOGY

1962: House at Checkpoint Charlie opens; will

become a repository of Wall information,
memorabilia and Western ideology
1976: Lew Nussberg, member of the 1962 Moscow
non-conformist Movement Group is the first
artist of international reputation to paint
on the Berlin Wall; non-conformist painting
is born in communist countries, it signals
a withdrawal to personal experience and
expression and into individual mythologies
- this will greatly affect neo­
expressionism though the source of
inspiration for the two movements are quite
different
1978: Rainer Fetting paints Van Gogh and Wall;
his work will lead him to paint on the Wall
itself for the making of a 1983 film in
which he takes on the persona of Van Gogh

1982: Jonathan Borofsky paints Running Man onto

the Berlin Wall as a site specific piece
for the Zeitgeist exhibition (December 1982
to January 1983)
1984: Christophe Bouchet and Thierry Noir begin
extensive graffiti work on the Wall; their
best known works are their "Statues of
Liberty" and Noir's cartoon faces which
appeared in Wenders' film Wings of Desire

David Wojnarowitcz paints on Wall in a neo-

expressionist/primitivist manner
Richard Hambleton paints some of his shadow
figures on Wall (Ghetto de Luxe); they
recall the conformity of soldiers
A similar "shadow figure" is painted by
Gordon + Rudi
 206

1986: Sculptor Peter Unsicker opens the Wall

Street Gallery on Zimmerstrasse, parallel
to the Wall

Keith Haring is commissioned by the

Checkpoint Charlie Museum to paint a 100m
stretch of the Wall

1986: Emigre East German peace activists paint a

white line over graffiti and paintings from
Mariannen Platz to Potsdamer Platz in
order to protest the aestheticization and
the making of the Wall into a tourist
attraction - they wish to emphasize memory
and politics

1988: Kiddy Citny paints many sections of the

Wall
Artistic exchange with Milan: a number of
Italian artists paint a mural at
Mariannenstrasse

November 1989: Graffiti on Eastern side of Berlin Wall

for the first time; the artist, Manfred
Butzman, paints rabbits - the only
creatures that inhabited the death zone
between the two walls

Shortly after the opening of the Wall,

Pepsi, AT&T, Saatchi and Saatchi and
Stolichnaya Vodka go to Berlin to
capitalize on the events which they will
use in their advertising

11 November 1989: New York Times reports on David Schwartz

and Edmond Howar, former TV producers of
Entertainment Tonight, who are selling
pieces of the Berlin Wall on Fifth Avenue,
New York; test-marketing their product,
these men have 20,000 pounds ready to
sell to department stores

January 1990: East Germany begins to prepare concrete

slabs for export; East-German import/export
company, Limex-Bau is offering brightly
painted slabs for $70,000 to $350,000 U.S.;
Limex-Bau's director, Helge Mobius states
that the fragments are "a symbol that the
Cold War is over"; Limex contracted three
U.S. and West German firms to help sell the
2.6 tonne slabs - East Germans are to keep
 207

50% of the profits; Limex is the only

company authorized to sell the large slabs;
in order to control the value of these
slabs, the East German government will
preserve only 360 of the total 45,000 pre­
cast pieces; it hoped to make $3 billion
U.S. from the sale; Hagen Koch was the
security official responsible - official
documents concerning the management of
slabs after 1989 are in Koch's files;
Koch is the owner of the last piece to be
dismantled; East and West German armies
sought the help of building contractors to
dismantle the Wall

28 January 1990: Souvenir pieces sold in Berlin for

$5.00
12 February 1990: Air-craft carrier In N.Y. City's Hudson
River displays three slabs for sale

February 1990: Bloomingdale's and Eaton's are selling

Hyman Products ' (Maryland Heights) souvenir
pieces for $12.50 U.S.; Hyman Products
include a certificate of authenticity which
reads: "You have just purchased a piece of
history, a fragment of the Berlin Wall. We
have verified the authenticity and origin
of this rock after careful investigation.
The Berlin Wall, which was constructed
during the height of the Cold War, has
remained intact for nearly 28 years. In
November 1989, portions of the Berlin Wall,
a part of which you now own, was torn down
to create free passage to the West. Enjoy
and treasure your fragment of freedom."

May 1990: By this date, 100 concrete slabs are

reported to have been sold worldwide; the
first auction of Berlin Wall slabs took
place at the Inter-Continental Hotel, West
Berlin; an auction was also held at the
World Expo in Seville
23 June 1990: Monte Carlo Auction: 81 slabs are put up
for sale by the East German government
through Limex-Bau; graffiti artists' names
are identified and individual pieces are
titled; up until 1996, artists Thierry Noir
and Kiddy Citny sought legal compensation
for the use of their work in the sale of
the auction slabs; the Monte Carlo pieces
 208

were in good condition because a camp of

squatters and "travellers" near Waldemar -
Strasse inadvertently protected this
section of wall from tourists
Rationale: "Much thought was given to what
should happen to the Wall after the quiet
revolution in the German Democratic
Republic had removed all sense of its being
there. Is it right to sell this symbol of
unfreedom as a showpiece? Nobody
concerned, neither in the East nor in the
West, has forgotten the Wall. It still
stands today for all to see and suppresses
any feeling of normality. It must be got
rid of, and yet it must be preserved to
admonish and remind mankind what happens
when freedom, our most valuable possession,
is lost and unrealistic dogma, disdainful
of mankind, takes its place. After much
thought and consideration, we have decided
that it is good and proper to sell the Wall
and convey the profits to those who have
suffered because of it. Limex and LeLe
have taken on this task and thanks to their
commitment, the Wall is to be auctioned
here today, far removed from the site of
confrontation. The proceeds of the auction
will go toward assisting public health in
the German Democratic Republic."
Pedigree: "In an attempt to fetch the
highest proceeds possible, the first
Segments of the Berlin Wall to be
dismantled stored away safely were those
considered most valuable from an historic
and artistic viewpoint. At the same time,
the number of saleable Segments was limited
to 360 so that they might be sold worldwide
for the highest price possible."
20 July 1990: Checkpoint Charlie site is to become a
shopping mall, symbol of the new capitalist
era; the guardhouse has been sent to a
museum

12 September 1990: Reagan in Berlin, tries his hand at

"wal1-pecking"
30 November 1990: Last sections of the Berlin Wall are
reported to have been dismantled
 209

1993: East Side Gallery at the Miihlen Strabe =

eastern section of the Wall saved for its
popularity
1996: 120,000 tonnes of Wall concrete are said to
have been shipped out of Berlin

2 - SOUVENIRS

November 1989-90: Berliners named the people who chiselled

pieces of the Berlin Wall "mauer-sprecht"
or wall-peckers; their motives were various
but were generally souvenir oriented or for
commercial resale; tourists could buy
souvenir pieces or hire a hammer and
chisel (a current joke at the time: from
hammer and sickle to hammer and chisel) to
remove their own piece; the continuous
noise of hammering night and day is
recalled bitterly by people who lived near
the Wall

April 1990: Wall merchants in Berlin were to get

licences; they sold chunks in plastic bags,
larger size pieces for up to $50.00, key
chains and earrings with little pieces of
concrete on them

November 1990: Six million German families reported to

own souvenir pieces of the Wall; twelve
percent of all Germans are said to own a
piece of the Wall

3 - MONUMENTS/PRE-CAST SLABS

Dimensions: Height: 3.6m; Base: 2.1m; Weight: 2.6 tonnes;

Width 1.2m; Thickness: 15cm; Construction: high
density reinforced concrete, with granulated agate

Arlington - Virginia. Freedom Park - part of the Newseum

(interactive news museum) - contains three
Berlin Wall slab fragments, two side by side
and one "fallen" onto its side. This display
is but one of eight "icons" (artefacts with
interpretation panels) in the park. There is
also a headless granite statue of Lenin. The
 210

interpretation panel for the Freedom Park Wall

fragments reads: "'Free, for the first time in
my life': It snaked through Berlin like a
concrete python, the only wall in history built
to keep a nation's people locked inside. The
wall - die mauer - went up to stop millions
from fleeing communist East Germany after World
War II. For 28 years, the Berlin Wall
symbolized the struggle between open and
closed societies. Nearly 2,000 people died
trying to escape to freedom. The wall's 12-
foot-high segments, like the ones here, weigh
2.5 tons each. They could stop a tank, but
they couldn't stop the truth from reaching East
Germany. People knew their wages were low,
that food and supplies were scarce, that life
in the West was better. By the 1980s,
communism was bankrupt. The Soviet Union could
no longer afford the Cold War - decades of
political and economic rivalry with the
capitalist West. The Soviet grip on Eastern
Europe loosened. A 7 p.m. on Nov. 9, 1989,
Politburo member Gunther Schabowski shocked
the world: Starting at midnight, he said, East
Germans were free to travel to the West. They
could stay for a few hours, or forever. Crowds
surged through the Berlin Wall. Champagne
flowed freely. Jubilant Germans literally
chipped away at the world's largest symbol of
tyranny. 'When we came home at dawn, ' said
Kristina Matschat, an East German homemaker and
former chemist, 'I felt free for the first time
in my life. ' Within a week, the wall - and the
East German regime - had crumbled." Small
fragments of the Wall can be purchased in the
Newseum gift shop.

Berlin - 2/3 of Wall concrete is ground down to build

new roads; 2.2 million tonnes of Berlin Wall
concrete recycled into pavement granules
By 1996, a number of pieces of the Wall are
reported to be remaining in situ; these are
largely unofficial sites whose status as
monuments is uncertain: 1) East Side Gallery,
a 1.3km section of the Eastern Wall was painted
in 1990 - developers want it removed; 2) One
original watch-tower remains; 3) A slab remains
at Niederkirchner-Strasse - this is near former
Gestapo and SS HQ and there is a good deal of
disagreement on the comparisons this could
raise between the Nazis and the Stasi; 4) A
 211

slab remains at Bernauer-Strasse, it is

protected by a steel grill - nevertheless, it
is in poor condition; locals want it gone; it
may become an addition to Kohl's Museum for
German History; 5) A piece remains at cemetery
1'Invalidenfriedhof where many Prussian
military leaders are buried; 6) Segments,
bunkers, and guard-towers are in the collection
of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum; 7) Watch
tower and five relocated segments of wall at
Kapelle Ufer with artworks by the recycling
artists, "Mutoid Waste"; 8) Museum of Forbidden
Art at Oberer Freiarchenbrtiche, has preserved
one command tower; 9) Stretch of eastern side
Wall with a mural on its western face dedicated
to the Wall's victims called "Memorial for the
Victims of Violence and War"; 10) Stretch of
western Wall at Pankow; 11) Guard tower and a
few segments at Potsdamer Platz (have likely
been removed by this date)

Budapest - Hunagry

Cap-Ferrat - France, Jaguba Rizzoli, widow of well-known

Italian editor, purchased a 27,000 Mark piece
with graffiti by Thierry Noir for her villa;
she believes in its healing power

Cognac - France, heiress Ljiljana Hennessy has a half­

slab with graffiti by Kiddy Citny integrated
into her villa; guests like to discuss its
meaning and often touch the fragment

Fatima - Portugal
Fulton - Missouri, Westminster College, where the term
"Iron Curtain" was first coined (Churchill)

Geneva - Switzerland, the United Nations in Geneva has

a segment
Hoetensleben - Germany, this village has rebuilt a
portion of the Wall with security towers,
barbed wire and projectors. Despite the
commemorative aspect, the mayor has conceded
that the reconstruction could become an
important tourist attraction

Honolulu - Hawaii, Feb. 10 1992: Opening ceremony at

Honolulu Community College, Hawaii; pre-cast
slab (Freedom Monument) is installed with 4'
additions on each side and enclosed in a
 212

protective glass casing; top tubing is re­

created; west side walkway is paved while East
side is finished in river rocks that are
difficult to walk on; the monument as a whole
is sectioned off with a unifying circle
noticeable in the pavement - this symbolizes
the unification of Germany; at the opening
ceremony, the Wall was blessed by Rev. David
Twigg; see http://gnn_e2a.gnn.com/gnn/wr/oct
13/views/law/index.htm

Japan - Purchase by a prestigious Japanese company

London - Placed its fragment in a an open park. It has

undergone transformations due to vandalism and
pillaging by the public.

Los Angeles - California, entrance to Municipal Library

Moscow - Piece in Moscow

New York - Anonymous New York artist is said to have

purchased a slab

Five panels along pedestrian passage to Museum

of Modern Art on 53rd street near Madison and
Fifth Avenue

Paris - France, three pieces displayed in the business

district near la Defense; they were eventually
put in storage until public attention was
brought to the matter; they are to be restored
to public view

Phoenix - Arizona, private businessman

Presidents - Ronald Reagan owns a section with a pink

graffiti butterfly, courtesy of the German
government - this piece is reported to be in
his home; this may, however, be the fragment
reported to be in the Reagan Presidential
Library

George Bush presented a 2.6 tonne piece by West

German External Affairs minister Genscher
The Kennedy family has received two slab
fragments
Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace built in
1992 will contain a 6,000 pound slab of the
Berlin Wall
 213

Sosnowka - Poland. Collector of Berlin Wall fragments

Ludwik Wasecki owns up to 44 of the large
segments - it is said to be the largest
collection of its kind; Wasecki originally
intended to exhibit the slabs as art works; on
Wasecki’s estate, numerous pieces were at one
time set up like dominos

Toronto - July 1991, City Councillor Korwin-Kuczynski

puts forth a motion to install a plaque at the
base of the arch at the southeast corner of the
Reflecting Pool in Nathan Phillips Square to
mark the naming of the arches as the "Freedom
Arches"; a report of July 8 indicates that a
six foot piece was broken down to the present
size; the plaque is mounted on a slab of the
Berlin Wall of a modest size; the plaque is in
French and English and reads: "Freedom Arches:
The Citizens of Toronto dedicate these
arches to the millions who struggled including
Canadians, to gain and defend freedom and to
the tens of millions who suffered and died for
the lack of it. May all that we do be worthy of
them. Only in freedom can the Human Spirit
soar. Against the Human drive for freedom
nothing сап long succeed. This plaque is
mounted on a slab of the Berlin Wall"

John Thompson, Director of the Mackenzie

Institute made this comment concerning the
dedication plaque: "The dedication of the
Freedom Arches commemorates the struggles and
deaths of tens of millions of people. Over
130,000,000 in this century alone died for the
want of - or to defend - our concepts of
individual freedom and liberty. The
dedication plaque should at least be accorded
a fraction of the regard that these dead
deserve.. . Placing the plaque on the side of
a planter box is inappropriate. Placing a two
dimensional piece where people can tread on it
is singularly inappropriate..."

Personal contacts with the Toronto Public Art

Commission and with City Hall in the summer of
1996 led to the conclusion that these official
bodies were unaware of the fragment's presence,
even as it is placed in Nathan Phillip's
Square.
 214

Vatican - The pope has a segment; the Vatican purchased

a slab with the symbol of the Baader-Meinhoff
terrorist group (Red Army Fraction); it is
located in the Vatican garden

Washington - The CIA has an entire row outside its

headquarters in Virginia

Fragments integrated into the walls of the

Pentagon

Winnipeg - February 1990: The German-Canadian Congress

of Manitoba wants to install a $500,000 piece
of the Wall on their proposed cultural centre
at the "Forks" development site; the fragment
is the property of Martin Bergen, President of
the Edison Rental Agency; it was purchased in
New York in the first stages of the sale of
slabs; the Forks Renewal Corporation is
supported by Manitoba MP Jake Epp; aboriginal
groups opposed the development as it largely
overlooked the site's importance to the native
community - they hoped more money could be put
toward the display and repatriation of native
artefacts; the fragment was temporarily on
public display in front of the Round Table
Restaurant and Lounge in Winnipeg in 1990

SOURCES:
Because small items have been pieced together to draw up this
section, please refer to the Bibliography for sources.
 APPENDIX III
THE MONTREAL FRAGMENT:
CHRONOLOGY AND DISPLAY CONTEXTS

Dimensions: Weight: 2.75 tonnes; Height: 3.6m; Width: 1.2m;

Base length: 2.1m; Description: graffiti on the
western sidez white paint on the eastern side with
number and whited out graffito

1989: ZLAN: Montreal is declared "Zone Libre

d'Arme Nucleaires"

January 1990: Planning of Place de la Paix begins;

Comite executif mandates SHDM, SLDC, SPC
and CIDEC:

CIDEC (Commission d'innitiative et de

developpement culturels), the city of
Montreal's public art commission was
created in 1989 largely to help rejuvenate
the city's image and to help prepare for
the 1992 350th anniversary; it has since
been reduced in size and is one of the
functions of the Service de la culture.

June 1991: La Corporation des celebrations du 350e

anniversaire de Montreal (1642-1992) was to
organize an exhibition: "Les Grandes Villes
du Monde Saluent Montreal"; as part of this
exhibition, the city of Berlin pledged to
send a Wall fragment to Montreal; by this
time the exhibition was cancelled due to
lack of time and poor international
circumstances (Iraq War/War against Iraq?)

Fall 1991: 350th Corp, informs CIDEC of Berlin's

intention to offer Montreal its Wall
monument despite cancellation of
exhibition; other public art works were
also received in this way, these include:
Lyon's lion, Paris' Charles de Gaulle
monument, Mexico's public art gift

February 1992: Berlin wants to send Wall fragment as a

symbol of the end of the Cold War and
witness to world peace; Montreal has not
yet accepted the offer; report states: "Les
dimensions imposantes de 1'objet et son
caractere historique lourdement connote ont
entraine de grandes hesitations a accepter
1'offre. Les hesitations des personnes
 216

rejointes concernaient egalement les

dimensions physiques, le contenu
symbolique et sur la difference de trouver
un site approprie."

April 1992: General consul Michael Schmidt meets with

Mayor Jean Dore and also contacts CIDEC to
propose a smaller piece; research by Public
Art Dept, determines that other major
cities have received large segments

5 May 1992: CIDEC links Wall problem with Place de la

Paix project; wants SHDU to consider
placing the Wall fragment in or near Place
de la Paix (PIP) since SHDU's project does
not have a real reference to peace (it is
in actuality a redevelopment plan); CIDEC
expects to hire a writer to create a
reflection on freedom which could help
integrate the object to the site; SHDU does
not seem interested - there is concern
about vandalism

6 May 1992: Statement - becomes policy in CIDECs

approach to the Wall fragment: "Il
faudrait eviter d'aborder le projet comme
s ' il s' agissait d * integrer une oeuvre d' art
au domaine publique ou dans une salle
d'exposition. Il ne s'agit pas d'une
oeuvre artistique. C'est d'abord et
d'avant tout un temoignage en faveur de la
paix qui symbolise la fin de la guerre
froide."

8 May 1992: Berlin wants response to offer; Schmidt

hires a German author to compose a short
text to accompany the Wall display (this
text is presently located on the base of
the Wall in the CCMM); Schmidt suggests
the Jardin des Fleuralies on Notre Dame
island as a potential site
1 June 1992: CIDEC member visits Jardin des Fleuralies
with consul Schmidt; "Il considere le mur
davantage comme une curiosite que comme un
symbole. Souhaiterait que nous le
traitions dans un decor neutre et
champetre."
August 1992: Julie Boivin, Agente de developpement
culturel at CIDEC writes the first serious
study of the fragment for this dossier; its
 217

focus is on communication, the division of

public and private language: "que
signifiera maintenant cet objet, qui en est
la manifestation materielle d'origine, a
Montreal, en dehors de son contexte
referentiel?"; "le segment du Mur de
Berlin, vu hors contexte, est un artefact
urbain sans reference a Montreal. Il ne
s ‘ agit pas de 1 ’ interpreter, ni d'у greffer
une intervention artistique sur le theme de
son abolition, mais de l'acceuillir dans un
lieu montrealais qui comportera des
references sur le theme du langage et de la
communication de fagon implicite et
explicite."
17 August 1992: Schmidt writes to CIDEC concerning
transportation of segment; city will
receive fragment and pay for storage until
site is chosen

25 August 1992: Fragment leaves Hamburg; this donation

from Germany is said to have no money value

4 September 1992: Fragment arrives in Montreal port aboard

the CANMAR TRIUMPH

20 November 1992: CIDEC hopes to have a site chosen by late

1992; Schmidt suggests that the fragment
could be divided into smaller pieces if
necessary; Schmidt suggests the interior of
the AMARC pavilion as another potential
site

2 February 1993: Report of fragment’s condition; graffiti

paint would only last 5-10 years in an
outdoor location; CIDEC will therefore seek
an interior location, civic building

16 February 1993: Newspapers report on City’s indecision

5 March 1993: Study of Parcours de la Paix (ParP) by

CIDEC, SHDU and SAI:
Possible itinerary for a Parcours de la
Paix: 1) artwork by Linda Covit "Caesura"
in Parc Jean-Paul II consisting of 15,000
toy soldiers; 2) Place of Parc de la Paix;
redevelopment of "devastated" area on St-
Laurent blvd. facing the Monument National
theatre; "C'est une forme d'harmonie
urbaine qui sera recree dans ce quartier,
 218

au benifice des personees qui у habiteront

ou de celles qui у passeront."; 3) Berlin
Wall fragment; to be situated somewhere
along St-Laurent blvd.; "Par definition cet
objet est litigieux et polemique. Il parle
de conflits, de guerre froide, d'une
conception totalitaire de la loi, de
I'ordre et de 1'ideologie."
Possible sites for Wall fragment:
1) Building Project on south side of Parc
de la Paix
2) Hall of Monument National
3) Saint-Laurent metro
4) de Castelneau metro
5) Places d'Armes metro/Palais des Congres
6) Palais de Justice
"Les significations multiples de la
presence du mur de Berlin, nous parlent de
la disparition de la democratie et de
1'abus du pouvoir, en ce lieu voue a
1'exercise de la loi, de la justice et
gardien de I'ordre et de la paix civile,
nous rappellerait en permanence I'equilibre
fragile et toujours a defendre de nos
societes."

Intelligibility of the fragment:

"...rappelant les deux societes qu'il
divisait, le trongonnage mecanique de ses
cotes revelant son appartenance a une
frontiers etendue ainsi que sa materialite,
son mode de construction, la numerotation
du segment nous renseignent sur le partage
du mur en differents endroits sur la terre,
finalement 1'ensemble de ces conditions
nous renseigne sur le sens porte par
1'existence du vestige, sa construction et
sa structuration, et doivent etre
consideres comme partie integrante d'un
tout a mettre en valeur a des fins
didactiques."
"Le type de mise en valeur du segment du
Mur est bien entendu, conditionnel au lieu
choisi. Il decoule de deux principes
majeurs: le sens de 'objet et la dimension
qu'il prend en rapport a son lieu
d'exposition, et les parametres essentiels
a sa bonne conservation ."
 219

Redevelopment: "La reconstruction d'un lieu

comme symbole de la paix a Montreal passe
done avant tout par la reconstruction des
lieux devastes de Montreal; la
reconstruction d'un public sur le
boulevard Saint-Laurent, la place de la
Paix, sur un site vacant, occupe par un
stationnement et entoure par d' autres
stationnements , est le geste le plus
puissant que I'on puisse poser pour enoncer
cette idee en generant la reconstruction
d'un quartier entier. Concretement, la
construction de ce symbole opere de
plusieurs manieres•"
"La construction de la place est a la base
de la renaissance d'un quartier, le
faubourg Saint-Laurent, qui fut 1'un des
plus anciens quartiers accueillant les
immigrants a Montreal..."

11 March 1993: Palais de Justice becomes the site of

preference for CIDEC

8 April 1993: Comite exdcutif approved Promenade de la

Paix and approves Hall du Palais de Justice
as site: "En tenant compte de la volonte
politique de nommer le boulevard Saint-
Laurent parcours de la paix, axe de
rassemblement de diverses communautes
culturelles et symbole de leur cohabitation
pacifique, 1'edifice du Palais de Justice
occupe le numero 1 rue Notre Dame Est, done
il est 1'un des premiers edifices sur le
parcours de la paix."

12 May 1993: Cabinet of minister Remillard (Justice)

has strong reservations about receiving
fragment
2 August 1993: Jean Pelletier, manager of Palais de
Justice is asked to study the case; Surete
du Quebec (security) has minor objections
concerning possible demonstrations and
vandalism; budgetary issues are also raised

10 August 1993: Jean Dore to Gil RemiHard: "L'artefact

offert a Montreal est un segment important
du mur original. La face ouest du segment
est peinte et possede une valeur esthetique
certaine."
 220

26 August 1993: Jean Pelletier laughingly reports to the

news media that City experts consider the
fragment to have aesthetic value; also
questions the appropriateness of an object
of touristic value in a hall of justice

September 1993: Ministry of Justice rejects the Palais de

Justice proposal

28 September 1993: SAI (Service des affaires

institutionnelles) suggests that fragment
could be located outside; this idea was
suggested to the anglophone TV news by
McGill architecture professor, Pieter
Sijpkes who believes that the segment
should be allowed to undergo changes
including further graffiti

29 September 1993: Biodome proposed as a possible site;

rationale: 1) "le biodome est un lieu
prestigieux qui acceuille des milliers de
visiteurs chaque annee. En 1'installant a
cet endroit, la Ville de Montreal s'assure
que ce cadeau soit accessible pour les
montrdalais et les visiteurs etrangers.";
2) "les thematiques de la paix et du
respect de 1'environnement ont ete relies
dans plusieurs documents notamment dans le
celebre rapport Bruntland et dans la
declaration de Montreal sur le
developpement viable."; 3) "le Mur de
Berlin peut etre installe au Biodome
en toute securite."

29 November 1993: CIDEC considers other locations: maisons

de la culture Mercier, Frontenac, Cote
des Neiges

24 December 1993: Dinu Bumbaru of Heritage Montreal submits

written analysis to CIDEC; with regard to
public consultation and the significance
the fragment may have for many different
communities in Montreal, he writes: "Il est
difficile d'identifier un sens unique au
fragment. Est-ce un fragment
d 'architecture, une oeuvre d'art rupeste
contemporain, un element prefabrique en
beton couvert de graffitis ou un artefact
historique? Ce morceau du mur combine
toutes ces definitions et ces
significations qui, chacune, amenent
diff erentes considerations quant au respect
 221

de 11authenticite materielle et de la
valeur symbolique de I'objet et a
1'exposition du Mur aux intemperies et au
public. Toutefois, il serait reducteur et
insuffisant se ne livrer le morceau du Mur
qu'aux debats d * experts en art. "
11 January 1994: CIDEC mentions negotiations with CCMM;
consultations with public, as Bumbaru
recommends, may not be necessary
4 February 1994: Report by Craig Johnson Restoration Ltd.
recommend the consolidation and protection
of paint with an anti-graffiti wax coating;
recommend keeping the fragment in a secure
and heated interior; "The East side of the
wall has minimal graffiti and evidence
where some of the graffiti has been
overpainted with white (spray) paint."
March 1994: Research on CCMM installation; study for
floor reinforcement; study for
interpretation programme

Subsequent study of Berlin Wall fragment;

Criteria of selection for a possible site:
1) save its integrity - pedagogical value
2) protection and surveillance
3) intelligibility (touch and vision)
4) appropriate site: "le lieu choisi pour
1' installation du mur peut banaliser ou
sacraliser artificiellement I'objet, ou au
contraire susciter une lecture approfondie
de ses sens multiples."

Mise en valeur: "Le segment du Mur devrait

etre pergu comme un artefact... Un objet
rappelant quelque chose. Issu de la
demarcation des frontieres entre deux
mondes, il temoigne du triomphe de la
democracie, et de la recherche de la paix
civile qui nous rappelle en permanence
I'equilibre fragile et toujours a defendre
de nos societes modernes."

Study with CCMM as context: "L' installation

et la mise en valeur du segment du Mur dans
un endroit tel que la ruelle des
fortifications du Centre de conunerce
mondial permettrait de mettre en parallele
le theme de frontiere separant deux entites
urbaines, et le caractere symbolique de
 222

vestiges de murs de fortifications. Lieu

ой furent eriges les defenses de la ville
de Montreal jusqu'au premier quart du dix-
neuvieme siecle, la ruelle des
fortifications en conserve encore les
traces non seulement dans la raise en valeur
des vestiges [sic], mais dans la
planification architecturale du complexe
centre de commerce."
"La presence d'un segment du Mur, qui bien
que porteur d'un message humanitaire plus
large, en ce lieu, ajouterait un element
didactique interessant et coherent avec la
vocation d'une institution montrealaise a
caractere 'mondial' . La cohabitation de ces
temoins de provenances et d'epoques
differentes jusqu'a nos jours sur ce
parcours historique emprunte
quotidiennement par un grand nombre de
citoyens montrealais, touristes et gens
d'affaires, ne pourrait que rehausser son
interet et son prestige."

Call for submissions for display of

fragment in CCMM; the document mentions:
"Le segment du Mur ne sera pas traite comme
objet d'art a caractere museologique, mais
plutot comme artefact urbain temoin de
civilisation. Il fera 1'objet de
surveillance par le CCMM, et le traitement
de conservation qui lui a ete prodigue
permet au public de toucher toutes ses
surfaces, et de se deplacer tout autour.";
GID Designs wins the competition

17 March 1994: Consul Schmidt is notified of CCMM site

18 March 1994: CIDEC hires a researcher to undertake an
in-depth study of the Berlin Wall and to
prepare an interpretational programme for
the CCMM site; researcher's interpretation
philosophy should consider the following:
historical and socio-political context
(past and present), status of fragment as
a commemorative object, link with city of
Montreal, link with its "microlocalisation"
on Fortification Lane and in the CCMM

13 April 1994: Document states that the City has clear

title of the fragment and that this object
is not an art work; this implies that there
 223

are no authorial rights related to its

property status; as part of the city’s
public art collection, the fragment must be
made accessible to the public
Media attention requires that segment be
installed in the briefest delay

14 April 1994: Consul Schmidt congratulates Mayor Dord

for the CCMM choice and its
international character

9 June 1994: Researcher’s report: section titled

’’1'Esprit du Mur," mentions the
technicalities of his captioning
philosophy: "Apres de nombreuses
discussions et entrevues, j 'en suis venu a
la conclusion qu'il fallait a tout prix
eviter les rapprochements trop etroits
entre Berlin et Montreal. Rien de
particulier n'unit ces deux villes, sauf
peut-etre qu’il s'agit de deux villes
divisees sur elles-memes, en deci in (par
rapport a une grandeur passee) et
relativement isolees de leur hinterland
geo-politique. Tout rapprochement trop
etroit avec Berlin ne pourra que raviver de
vieilles plaies. Il s'en trouvera
certainement plusieurs pour rappeler
qu’a Montreal, il existe encore des
interidts, sur le plan linguistique entre
autres."

Interpretation is to privilege: 1) the

responsibility of receiving the artefact
and the admonition to not forget the value
of freedom; 2) the link with the site which
develops the theme of Montreal and Berlin,
two open (free) cities
19 August 1994: Protocol/contract between City and CCMM

30 September 1994: Official unveiling; press communique

mentions: "Le Centre de commerce mondial se
veut un symbole de 1'ouverture de Montreal
sur le monde, un vivant reflet des
relations harmonieuses que nous
entretenons avec nos nombreux partenaires
du monde entier" (according to Mayor Dore);
dignitaries at the ceremony include German
Ambassador Sulimma, Mayor Dore and Director
of the Societe de promotion du CCMM Paquin
 224

Interpretation Panels Used for Wall Fragment Display:

Le Mur de Berlin & Montreal

En 1992, Montreal a celebre le 350e anniversaire de sa
fondation. A cette occasion, les autorites berlinoises
offraient a la Ville de Montreal ce fragment du Mur de Berlin,
temoin du passe douloureux d'une ville qui, pendant trop
longtemps, a ete le symbole de la division.
Ville d'exploration, ville frangaise en terre d'Amerique,
ville de rencontre et d’ interpenetration des cultures,
Montreal a maintenant elle aussi la responsabilite de se
rappeler et de temoigner combien la libertd est un bien
precieux et fragile.
Montreal n'a pas un tel mur, raais elle a eu ses
fortifications. Construites de 1714 a 1741, elles furent
finalement demolies aux environs de 1801. On en trouve encore
des vestiges sur le Champs-de-Mars, derriere 1'hotel de ville.
Long d' approximativement 2,5 kilometres, son parcours aurait
divise en deux le Centre de commerce mondial.
Lieu de passage et lieu d'ouverture sur le monde, la Ville
de Montreal est fiere de s'associer au Centre de commerce
mondial pour acceuillir ce temoin du retour de Berlin dans la
communaute des villes libres.

Le Segment de Montreal
Srige dans la nuit du 12 aout 1961 sur I'ordre des autorites
de la Republique democratique allemande, le Mur separait les
trois zones occidentales de Berlin de la zone allors sous
administration est-allemande.
Dans sa partie urbaine, le Mur avait plus de 170 kilometres
de long. Il etait protege par 231 postes d'observation et 132
bunkers fortifies. Il etait patrouille en permanence par des
gardes armes, ayant I'ordre de tirer sur toute personne qui
tenterait de le franchir. Une route de ceinture et des fils
d' avertissement, enfouis sous la surface, permettaient aux
gardes d'intervenir au moindre geste suspect.
Le Mur ne s'est pas construit en une seul nuit. Dans sa
premiere version, il s'agissait tout simplement de fils
barbeles, etendus le long de la ligne de demarcation. Tres
rapidement, on passa a une construction plus solide composee
d'une enfilade de blocs de beton entrecoupes de cloture
metalliques.
A la fin des annees 60, le Mur donnait des signes
d'affaissement et de degradation. On a done entrepris d'en
realiser une troisieme version, utilisant cette fois des
panneaux de beton precontraint, anerds solidement au sol par
de longues tiges de metal rendant ainsi impossible sa
traversee par voie de tunnels. Cest a ce momement que 1'on
a remplace les fils barbells, places au sommet du Mur, par un
cylindre qui empechait quiconque de le franchir en s'agrippant
aux fils. En 1976, on a renforce de nouveau le Mur, tout en
multipliant les pieges et les obstacles pour le proteger.
 225

Le segment de Mur expose & Montrdal fait partie

de la quatrifeme gyration du Mur de Berlin
Ce panneau autoportant est renforce de tiges metalliques
soudees les unes aux autres. Le support, integre a la base du
Mur, permettait de le positionner tres pres de la ligne de
demarcation, sans avoir a construire une structure pour
1'empecher de basculer.
Avant d'effectuer des travaux de reparation, des
millitaires, rattaches aux services de genie de l'armee,
devaient cependant construire une cloture temporaire afin de
s' assurer que les ouvriers, affectes a la refection du Mur, ne
profitent de 1’occasion pour passer a 1'Quest.
En uniformisant a un metre la largeur de toutes les sections
du Mur, les autorites est-allemands esperaient non seulement
en reduire les cotits de construction, mais aussi faciliter et
accelerer les reparations eventuelles. Pour des raisons
esthetiques, les autorites ont pris grand soin de donner au
Mur une texture lisse, comportant le moins de joints
possibles. Cette surface lisse fera rapidement la joie des
dessinateurs de graffiti. Situe pres de la Porte
Brandebourg, le segment montrealais du Mur n'dtait pas coiffe
a I'origine de 1' arrondi que 1'on voit habituellement sur les
photos.

Les Graffiti
A la fin des annees 60, les etudiants berlinois ont realise
que le Mur constituait un merveilleux tableau d'affichage pour
les messages a saveur revolutionnaire. Le Mur s' est done
couvert de slogans anti-impdrialistes et parfois meme anti­
americains, ce qui n'a pas manque de soulever 1 ’ ire de la
population ouest-allemande.
Dans les annees 70, les premiers graffiti ont fait leur
apparition. La transformation du Mur en une surface lisse et
continue у a contribue. Au debut, les "peintres" se sont
contentes d'une simple signature. Plus tard, certaines
"fresques" ont attaint jusqu’a 100 metres de long.
Bon nombre de themes font directement reference au Mur et a
la symbolique de 1' emprisonnement. Ainsi on ne compte plus le
nombre de "fermetures eclair", de fissures, de portes et de
fenetres peintes sur le Mur, comme pour mettre perpetuellement
son existence en question.

La Fin du Mur
Dans la soiree du 9 Novembre, un porte-parole des autorites
est-allemandes a lu a la presse Internationale une note de
service.
On у apprenait que le nouveau gouvernement de la Republique
democratique allemande avait decide d’abolir le visa
necessaire aux Allemands de 1’Est pour se rendre a 1'etranger.
En moins de quelques minutes, des milliers de Berlinois de
I'est affluaient aux points de passage du Mur, demandant
1'autorisation de se rendre a 1'Quest. Devant l’ampleur et
 226

1'apparente legalite du mouvement, les gardes-frontieres ont

ete dans 1* obligation de laisser passer ces milliers de
visiteurs d'un soir.
Afin de faciliter les nombreux aller-retour de Berlinois
curieux de verifier s'ils pouvaient effectivement passer
librement d'une zone a 1'autre, les autorites est-allemandes
ont entrepris des le lendemain d'elargir les points de passage
designes, en enlevant des sections entieres du Mur.
L'oeuvre de demolition avait commence. Des le 11 novembre,
on avait retabli les premiers circuits d'autobus entre les
deux zones. Quelque mois plus tard, le Mur avait presque
completement disparu.
Les Principales Dates (1961-1990, list of 10 key dates)

78 Morts (1961-1989, lists the dates and names of 78 people

who died while attempting to overcome the Wall)

Plaque Installed on the Base of the Fragment:

Poem by Fritz Grasshof: Berlin Wall, 1961-1989

This section of the wall is a blade of a knife that sliced
a heart in two.
This fragment of rock is the remains of a dungeon whose
walls life tore asunder
This piece of debris is a triumph over terror and tyranny
This piece of concrete bears a message: The freedom of a
people cannot be divided
With this donation, Berlin salutes the City of Montreal on
the occasion of its 350th anniversary in the year 1992

SOURCES:

All information for Appendix III can be found in Montreal

newspapers and file #C920022 (Mur de Berlin) in the archives
of the Service de le culture.
Thibodeau, Helene. Agente de developpement culturel, Service
de la culture, Montreal. Interviews, Oct 1995, May 1996.
 APPENDIX IV

THE OTTAWA FRAGMENT

CHRONOLOGY AND DISPLAY CONTEXTS

Dimensions: Same dimensions as Montreal fragment with the

exception of the base which was shortened to
approx. 70cm; Graffiti: depicts an open
Brandenberg Gate and also depicts the word Barlin
- these somewhat convenient symbols raise the
question of the "authenticity" of the graffiti

Site: Wellington street lobby of the Canadian Government

Conference Centre, Ottawa
13 February 1990: Government Conference Centre hosts "Open
Skies" Conference involving the FRG, GDR,
U.K., U.S., Soviet Union, France and
Canada; this conference led to the "Two-
Plus-Four " talks which led to German
unification

3 October 1990: Official date of German unification

June 1991: Prime Minister Brian Mulroney invites

German Foreign Minister Genscher to visit
Ottawa to unveil a "Two-Plus-Four"
commemorative plaque

8 August 1991: National Capital Commission does not

favour attaching the "Two-Plus-Four" plaque
to the walls of the Conference Centre
since, according to protocol, they are
reserved for domestic achievements - the
Conference Centre remains an iconic site of
the failure of Meech Lake; placing a plaque
on a base removed from the wall is an
alternative
German embassy proposes cutting a fragment
of the Berlin Wall and use this as a base
for the plaque; Prime Minister's Office
agrees to this idea; NCC has misgivings
about the aesthetic value of using a piece
of the Wall as a base
9 August 1991: Pressure is put on the NCC to reconsider
the Wall’s symbolic value
12 August 1991: External Affairs meets with NCC
 228

14 August 1991: Berlin Wall fragment is approved, but

concern about vandalism and conservation
requires an indoor site

22 August 1991: Shoreline Graphics hired for plaque

construction and installation; Lester B.
Pearson building is considered a possible
site for the commemoration ceremony and
installation

"We need to advise the German Embassy here,

as soon as possible, of the dimensions of
the piece of the ’wall’ required, so that
they can arrange its delivery before 27
September. In this connection, it is
important to note that the Germans
themselves envisage a piece suitable for
mounting the plaque(s) and not a 'monolith'
for museum purposes."

Interpretation: "Image: simple, elegant,

permanent; historic significance; V.I.P.
involvement in commemoration unveiling;
high media interest; Unity: Canada's
international role; harmony and peace among
nations"

28 August 1991: "Senior management of this department have

since been attracted to the idea of
locating the commemoration within the
Pearson Building. We know that the Germans
themselves feel honoured by the present
proposal and now prefer it, as they view
the agreement to launch the ' Two-plus—Four'
process as a major diplomatic achievement
in which Canada played a significant part.
(They did not, for instance, favour putting
the commemoration in a museum, eg. the
Museum of Civilization."

30 August 1991: Shoreline Graphics: Design Parameters,

Approach: "We have been asked to use a
piece of the Wall as the dominant element
of this monument. As a symbol of what this
commemoration represents there is no
stronger image or element than the wall
itself. We have also been asked to keep
the design simple and uncluttered. We are
again, in strong concurrence with this
direction. The wall should stand alone as
a powerful symbol. The monument is to be
housed against a large wall in a hallway of
 229

the lobby of External Affairs [Pearson

Building]."

"The wall should be presented in its

original form. To present a portion of it
would diminish its impact."

"The walls between the East and West are

crumbling both figuratively and literally.
The symbolism of a deteriorating wall
littered with graffiti captures these
feelings. The disintegration of barriers
between countries should be highlighted.
We would therefore recommend ’working' the
wall to make it appear as if it is
deteriorating complete with exposed
reinforcing bars, chipped cap and even a
hole through the wall. The hole would have
a symbolism of its own representing the
initial break in the wall which ultimately
led to the entire wall coming down. We
would also add appropriate (non-specific)
graffiti to the wall where appropriate."

16 September 1991: P.M. Mulroney orders that the plaques and

Wall fragment be located in Conference
Centre
27 September 1991: Unveiling ceremony of plaques; mock ups
of brass plaques are prepared; dignitaries
include P.M. and German Foreign Minister
Genscher; Wall fragment is to be located in
Conference Centre
Statements by Mulroney at unveiling press
scrum: "The plaques before you today will
be permanently installed in the Conference
Centre to commemorate the remarkable event
that took place here in Ottawa. I want to
take this opportunity to thank the German
government for their gift of the original
section of the Berlin Wall as part of this
commemoration, a striking symbol of a
people, a country, and indeed, a continent,
once divided."

"La revolution en cours en Europe centrale

et en Europe centrale et en Europe de 11 Est
ne peut plus faire marche arriere."

"The interethnic violence, which has

erupted, for example, in Yugoslavia, in
 230

particular, is a sad reminder of the

permanent challenge that such conflicts
represent for all of us. We must build
upon our achievements together to bring
about a durable peace. Transatlantic ties
are essential for meeting this common
challenge. Thanks, in large part, to Mr.
Genscher, the Transatlantic Declaration
of Cooperation, which I had the honour to
sign with the European Community last fall,
in Rome, establishes new and historic
political bonds between our two continents.
These bonds have been reinforced through
our joint efforts in the Gulf War, our
partnership at the UN, within NATO and the
G-7 and the CFCE, and more recently,
through the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development. These
institutions are vital to the peace,
prosperity and stability of Europe and the
World."
Statement by Genscher: "The unification of
Germany in free self-determination, in
peace, and in freedom, and in harmony with
all her neighbours marks the end of the
cold war. .. Our task today is to create a
new and lasting peaceful order in Europe."

22 November 1991: German Embassy raises concerns about

delay in Berlin Wall installation

19 March 1992: News media report on delay in installing

fragment

26 March 1992: Berlin Wall fragment is installed in

Conference Centre
 231

Interpretation/plaque:
On 13 February, 1990, during the Ottawa "Open Skies"
Conference, the Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of
Germany, the German Democratic Republic, France, the United
Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to
launch their historic "Two-plus-Four" talks on German unity.
Thus began a process culminating in the peaceful unification
of Germany on 3 October, 1990. The Ottawa agreement
symbolizes Canada's strong and abiding commitment to harmony
among nations.
This plaque is mounted on a piece of the Berlin Wall, which
once divided Germany, yet yielded to the hope of achieving a
Europe united in peace, prosperity and freedom.
Inaugurated on 27 September, 1991, by the Foreign Minister
and Deputy Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr.
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, at the invitation of the Right
Honourable Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada.

[Plaque is in English, German, French and Russian]

SOURCES:
All information for Appendix IV can be found in Ottawa
newspapers. The many government departments involved in the
Ottawa case make it difficult to attribute to any one
department the responsibility of installing the segment.
Information for this process was made available through two
Access to Information and Privacy Requests: Public Works and
Government Services Canada, file #ATI960183/RM, as well as
Foreign Affairs and International Trade, file #A—3313.

Thompson, Paul, Officer at External Affairs and International

Trade Canada, Ottawa. Interview, Fall 1996.

Coady, Bob, Shoreline Graphics, Ottawa. Interview, Fall 1996.

 APPENDIX V

"NO MAN’S LAND"

A TEMPORARY SITE SPECIFIC SOUND
PROJECTION TO ACCOMPANY THE DISPLAY OF THE BERLIN
WALL LOCATED IN THE 'RUELLE DES FORTIFICATIONS' IN
THE 'CENTRE DE COMMERCE MONDIAL DE MONTREAL'

A project by Marc J. Leger

Voice recording: Lysanne Thibodeau and Marc Leger

John Borneman, After the Wall

"The East displayed a consistent colonization of public
space... while private space was left a free zone for
dreaming."

Ken Smith, Coming in from the Cold

"For West Berliners the Wall became a bore, a cliche. The
Wall and the enclosure of the city became normality. "

Mary Beth Stein, "The Politics of Humor..."

"In East Berlin the distance between normative spheres is
great... The 'other' Berlin is taboo, often attainable only
through the media or occasional visitors from the West... In
West Berlin... the 'other' Berlin is not taboo; the Wall is
permeable, surmountable. West Berliners move through
normative spheres with relative ease; the crossing of the
border has become a routinized and relatively efficient
experience. This situation has made for a relative
pluralization of norms... The decline in the political joke
culture in the West is integrally related to this
pluralization of norms..."

Elaine Scarry, "Arbeit Medallion"

"Behind the actual wall - as one could see by climbing the
fifteen steps of the watch tower nearby - there was no bright
field of blue filled with luminous [graffiti] people waiving,
only the empty horizontal expanse of brownish-pink dirt and
the white concrete of the second wall in the two-layer
construction surrounding West Berlin. But for a moment, back
on the ground in front of the [graffiti] Arbeit Medallion, the
space behind the curtain had become open, blue, full and
alive... The Arbeit Medallion now appears a precocious
anticipation of the November 1989 revolution (open, blue, full
and alive) when the working population - not the
intellectuals, artists or civic leaders - became the agents of
radical transformation, through pacific levitations practiced
in the streets in Leipzig, at the exit gates of Czechoslovakia
and atop the disappearing wall itself. The prophetic Arbeit
[graffiti] siblings lift the wall with their mimesis of
aliveness, then go on to reveal how the magic trick is done.
They seek not only to animate but to make the act of animation
imitable."
 233

Christa Wolfr The Author's Dimension

"I do have the impression that in the West many of the media
are now expressing the attitude of victory, saying: 'we have
been right all along. ' I think they can use this as a mantle
to hide their own problems. That isn't useful, either to them
or to us."
Julie Boivin, "Le Mur de Berlin: Analyse de la signification"
"A l'acces a 1' information et a la liberte d'expression
s'enchaine une reforme et une restructuration- des deux etats
de 1'Est et de 1'Quest. La permeation du Mur, pour
paraphraser les propos de Madamme Christa Wolf (ecrivaine
Berlinoise reputee), n'est seulement que I'evenement visuel le
plus dramatique d'un processus de reforme. Cette
structuration est actuellement realisee au travers
d'organisations professionnelles et travaillistes, ainsi que
par les institutions impliquees directement dans la vie
quotidienne. Le processus de restructuration doit s'effectuer
par un changement de la culture de la vie quotidienne et
1'enjeu au centre du changement politique est celui de la
revitalisation du langage (en reference aux deux types de
langage ddveloppes a Berlin Est en raison de la repression
politique): le langage privd et le langage public.
...Le langage visible d'une de ses faces [du Mur], a 1'Quest,
celui du graffiti, et a 1'Est, le langage abstrait dont
Christa Wolf fait mention: le langage qui devra etre
revitalise, le langage public et le langage prive.
. . .La thematique d' integration du Mur de Berlin dans un espace
Montrealais, pourrait etre celle d'envisager son existence
dans un lieu ой 1'on peut realiser un revitalisation du
langage public, et du langage prive, un lieu de
restructuration ou ces changements font partie de la vie
quotidienne."

Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History"

"Every image of the past that is not recognized by the present
as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear
irretrievably."

The proposed sound projection emerges from a pre-existing

situation and a theoretical and historical examination of the

display context of a Berlin Wall fragment which was installed

by Montreal's 'Service de la culture' in 1994 in the public

arcade of the 'Centre de commerce mondial de Montreal.' As

the above excerpts demonstrate, the concept for the projection
 234

derives from conditions that while not simply there to be

found, were made possible by the material circumstances of the

Wall display as well as by archival and academic information.

To read Elaine Scarry’s essay across the grain, I would add

the simple fact that the Arbeit Medallion - a graffiti project

by the artist Thierry Noir which covered an expanse of the
Wall in the Kreuzberg section of West Berlin - was not visible

from the East and could have little to do with East Berliners'
mass emigration through Western embassies and foreign borders.

Despite her mention of the agency of the German people,

Scarry's text is exemplary of a tendentious idealization of

the forces of History and a concomitant view that the Berlin

Wall fell (or "levitated") of its own oppressive weight. This

in general affects my understanding of the numerous Berlin

Wall segment-cum-monuments that have been dispersed throughout

the world in the months following the final detente of the

Cold War and the official dismantling of the Stalinist regimes

of the former Soviet countries.

In the case of the Montreal display, a section from one of

the flanking information panels mentions the events of May 2,

October 9 and November 4, 1989: important dates of passage to

the West and of mass demonstrations in Leipzig and East
Berlin. Despite this mention, the material fact of the Wall
fragment preserves only the Western side of a much more

complex defense system. Obviously the artefact functions

metonymically with regard to a history, a place, and more

 235

technically, a defense system. But what is left when such a

fragment is used in this way?

In an article on humour in the context of Berlin in the

1980s and before the fall of the Wall, Mary Beth Stein

describes how the two cultures had different ways of

negotiating the reality of the border. In the West, graffiti

was the most visible and notable public as well as private

discourse on the Wall. The graffiti-sprayed Wall was in fact

well integrated into the local tourist economy. In East

Berlin, humorous response to the Wall conformed to the

division between private and public language. Jokes about the

Wall, as forms of political resistance, were told in private.

(Some jokes were also introduced into the culture by the State

apparatus and although humorous, had the intended effect of

maintaining ideological positions.)

Monuments are expected to bear silent witness to past

events. Recent studies on memory and representation, however,

show that the past is reworked through the act of memory and

through our own representations of that past. In contrast to

the silence of the Berlin Wall monument, and the belief that

the past should be laid to rest, this project proposes active

remembering and the non-fixity of representation.

In dialogue with the visual and graffiti-sprayed facade of

the Berlin Wall fragment, I suggest a sound display emanating

from behind the segment and making visible the silence that
 236

the white back section of the Wall produces. Behind the Wall

display (positioned in such a way as to privilege its Western

face) there are benches and potted plants and a few feet from

these, the falling underside of an escalator. This back

section is somewhat private and restful, used most often by

the workers of the CCMM during their breaks, but also by

locals cutting through the 'ruelle' and by tourists who may be

staying at the Inter-Continental Hotel which opens directly

onto the section of the lane where the Wall segment is placed.

With respect to the rationale that produced the display in

a museological manner as a recontextualized artefact, East

German jokes, emanating from two speakers beneath the nearby

passage ramp (behind the Wall fragment), could also be thought

of as fragments of the past, taken out of their original

context and recontextualized in tandem with the monumental

Wall fragment. The content of the jokes read in German and in

French bring to memory the broader project of socialist reform

and the role played by millions of East Germans in the
dismantling of the Wall. In short, the proposed project seeks

to recall November 9, the date of the dismantling of the Wall,

by remembering the role played by both cultures in the

resistance to authoritarian forms of governance, graffiti from
the West and jokes from the East. The sound projection is to
be kept at a very low level, respecting the intimacy of this

particular corner, the solemnity of the memorial, and also

recalling the secrecy of the private language which nourished

 237

such forms of political and spiritual resistance.

It is understood that the reception of the jokes will vary

considerably from listener to listener. This has as much to

do with the North American context as with the relative

humorousness of the jokes themselves. As well, these cultural

fragments are narrated in a factual tone and were recorded in

a studio space which produces what sound technicians call

"dead space." This inflection respects the display strategy

of the Wall fragment and allows for the most breadth of

interpretation considering the limits of the monumental form.

Without question, these jokes are about a terrible subject.

Beyond political ambivalence and simply in terms of human

drama, it is unclear whether one should and even could laugh

at these jokes. Like the two-tonne pre-cast cement slab,

these subtle artefacts preserve the import and the

momentousness of a distant event/place. The proposed

projection also distracts the monuments' obligation to provide

fixed knowledge and information. It invites viewer/listeners

simply to consider the evidence and perhaps for those already

familiar with the display, to reformulate, remember, revisit
and rework their experience and understanding of the
ostensible subject at hand.
Possible dates for the work could be between October 3, the

official date of German unification and the date Berlin became

the capital of Germany, and November 9, the date of free

passage between East and West Berlin.

 239

JOKE PROGRAMME
Jokes in German and English are taken from Stein's Article.
French translations by Marc Leger.

1)
Warum ist die Berliner Mauer, als Schutz des Sozialismus,
iiberflussig?
Ohne die Mauer wiirde sich kein Mensch entschliessen, nach
West-Berlin zu fliichten.

Why was it foolish to build the Wall in order to protect

socialism?
If it weren't for the Wall no one would want to escape to the
West.
Pourquoi etait-ce insense de constmire le Mur pour proteger
le socialisme?
Si ce n'etait pour le Mur, personne ne voudrait fuir vers
1'Quest.

2)
Ein Amerikaner kommt nach Berlin, geht zum Taxi-Fahrer hin,
und sagt "Konnen Sie mich durch Berlin fahren?"
"Klar, kann ick det."
Fahren sie los, er zeigt ihn Alexanderplatz, Prenzlau, zeigt
ihn Weissensee, zeigt ihn alle Seheswerte, und der Ami dann,
"Ich habe eine Frage, wo ist hier ' anti-faschistische
Schutzwall'?"
"Wat? Kenn ick nicht."
"Nu, hier sprechen 'anti-faschistische Schutzwall'."
"Weess ick nicht, tut mir Leid."
Zeigt ihn weiter Berlin, und dann immer mal wieder "Wo ist
hier 'anti-faschistische Schutzwall'?"
Endlich kommen sie zufallig an der Mauer vorbei, und der Ami
springt - und schreit, "Anhalten, anhalten. Stop, stop, stop!"
Springt aus'm Auto, "Hier ist 'anti-fascistische Schutzwall' I "
"Wat is det? He, det ist der Autobahn Berlin-Rostock, der
hangt hier zum trocknen."
 240

An american comes to (East) Berlin, goes to a taxi driver and

says "Can you drive me through Berlin?"
"Sure, I can."
They drive around, he shows him Alexanderplatz, Prenzlau,
shows him Weissensee, shows him all the things worth seeing.
Then the American says, "I have a question. Where is the
'anti-fascist protection wall'?"
"What? Don't know it?"
"Uh, here (they) say 'anti-fascist protection wall'."
"Don't know it, sorry." -
The driver shows him some more of Berlin, and then always,
"But where is the anti-fascist protection wall'?"
Finally they drive past the Wall, and the American jumps - he
cries out, "Halt, halt. Stop, stop, stop!" Jumps from the
car, "Here is the 'anti-fascist protection wall'!"
"Huh, what's that? Hey, that's the Berlin-Rostock highway
hanging up to dry."
Un Americain arrive a Berlin Est, se dirige vers un taxi et
demande au chauffeur: "Pouvez-vous me promener en voiture
dans Berlin?"
"Oui, certainement."
Ils se promenent, le conducteur lui montre Alexanderplatz,
Prenzlau et Weissensee, il lui montre tout ce qui vaut la
peine d'etre vu. Ensuite l'Americain dit, "J'ai unc question.
Ou se trouve le 'mur de protection anti-fasciste' ?"
"Quoi, je ne le connais pas."
"Eh, ne dit-on pas le 'mur de protection anti-fasciste, ' ici?
"Je regrette, je ne le connais pas."
Le conducteur le promene encore dans Berlin, et toujours il
insiste, "Mais ou done est le 'mur de protection anti-
fasciste?"
Finalement, ils passent devant le mur, l'Americain sur-saute
et s'exclame, "Arretez, arretez." Il descends de l'auto. "Le
voici le 'mur de protection anti-fasciste'! "
"Qui у a-t-il? Ah ?a, ?a e'est 1'autoroute Berlin-Rostock qui
seche au vent."

3)
Warum gibt es keinen Smog-Alarm in Ost-Berlin, wenn es einen
in West-Berlin gibt?
Unsere Grenzen sind dicht.
Why is there no smog alarm in East-Berlin when there is in
West-Berlin?
Our borders are tight.

Pourquoi n'y a-t-il pas d'alarme contre la pollution

atmospherique a Berlin Est tandis qu'il у en a a Berlin Quest?
Nos frontieres sont hermetiques.
 241

4)
Wer ist im Renten-Alter und darf trotzdem nicht bach Berlin-
West?
Die Berliner U-bahn.

Who is retired and nonetheless is not allowed to travel to

West Berlin?
The East Berlin subway.

Qui est a la retraite mais n’a toutefois pas le droit de

voyager a 1'Quest?
Le metro de Berlin Est.

5)
Warum sind die Ost-Berliner bidder als die Ost Friesen?
Sie haben sich eine Mauer gebaut und sich auf die falsche
Seite gestellt.
Why are the East Berliners dumber than the East Friesans?
They built a wall but placed themselves on the wrong side.

Pourquoi les Berlinois de 1'Est sont-ils moins intelligents

que ceux de 1'Quest?
Parce qu'ils ont construit un mur et se sont places du mauvais
cote.

6)
Ulbricht ist im Restaurant. Da die Kellner in, die ihm
bediente, hubsch war, sagte er ihr, sie diirfe sich etwas
wiinschen. Sie uberlegt und sagt, sie wiinscht sich, dass er
dir Mauer einen Tag aufmacht. Geschmeichelt, blinzelt er ihr
zu und sagt, "Sie sind schlau! Sie wollen nur mit mir alleine
seine!"

Walter Ulbricht was eating in a restaurant. Because the

waitress who served him was very pretty, he said he would
grant her one wish. She thought for a minute and said she
wanted him to open the wall for one day. Ulbricht winked and
said, "You're a clever one. You just want to be alone with
me! "

Walter Ulbricht se trouvait un jour dans un restaurant.

Puisque la serveuse etait tres jolie, il lui dit qu'il lui
accorderait un souhait. Elle reflechit un instant et dit
qu'elle souhaiterait qu'il ouvre le Mur pour une journee.
Ulbricht lui fait un clin d'oeil et repond, "Vous etes
ingenieuse. Vous voulez, en fait, etre seule avec moi!"
 242

7)
Wo ist beim guten Grenzsoldat der Warnschuss?
Im zweiten Magazin ganz hinten.

When does a good border guard fire the warning shot?

At the end of the second clip of ammunition.

A quel moment un bon garde de frontieres tire-t-il le coup

d'avertissement? (coup de semonce)
A la fin d'une seconde charge de balles.

8)
Ein Ost-Berliner Grenzpolizist entdeckt einen Mann, der tiber
die Mauer fliichten will. "Komm 'runter, Genosse," sagt er.
"Das ist verboten.
Der Mann auf der Mauer ignoriert ihn und klettert weiter.
"Komm 'runter, Genosse," wiederholt der Grenzer. "Das ist ein
Verbrechen gegen die Deutsche Demokratische Republik."
Der Mann versucht immer noch uber die Mauer zu entkommen.
Endlich sagt der Grenzer, "Komm 'runter, Genosse. Du weisst,
auf der anderen Seite ist auch der Sozalisraus."
Ganz entmutigt klettert er 'runter.
Der Grepo ist verbliifft tiber seine plotzliche Wendung und
fragt, "Dreimal habe ich Dir befohlen 'runterzukommen. Warum
bist Du erst ' runter gekommen als ich sagte im Westen ist auch
der Sozialismus?"
Der Mann antwortete, "So ein Wirrwarr mochte ich nicht ein
zweites Mal erleben!"

An East Berlin border guard comes upon a man climbing over the
Wall. "Come down, comrade," he says, "That is verboten."
The man on the Wall ignores him and continues to climb.
"Come down, comrade," the border guard insists, "That is a
crime against the German Democratic Republic."
The man continues to struggle over the top.
Finally the border guard says, "Come down, comrade. You know
there is socialism on the other side of the Wall as well."
Upon hearing this, the man climbs down with a disheartened
look.
The border guard is puzzled by his sudden change of mind and
asks, "Three times I ordered you to come down. Why did you
finally obey when I said socialism was in the West too?"
The man replied, "Such a mess I don't want to experience twice
in my life!"
 243
Un garde de frontieres de Berlin Est surprend un homme en
train de grimper le Mur.
"Descendez camarade," lui dit-il. "C'est interdit."
L'homme ignore le garde et continue son escalade.
"Descendez camarade," insiste le garde, "C'est un crime centre
la Republique Democratique de 1'Allemagne."
L'homme essaye toujours de franchir le Mur.
Finalement, le gade lui dit, "Descendez camarade. Vous savez,
le socialisme existe de 1'autre cote du Mur."
Sur ce, 1'homme descends, 1'aire decourage.
Le garde de frontieres, surpris de le voir changer d'idee
soudainement, lui demande, "Trois fois je vous ai ordonne de
descendre. Pourquoi avez vous finalement obeis lorsque j'ai
dit que le socialisme existait aussi de 1' autre cote du Mur?
L'homme repond: "Je ne veux pas connaitre un tel desordre deux
fois dans ma vie!"

9)
Tausche komfortables, luxuridses Einfamilienhaus gegen Loch in
der Mauer.

Swap comfortable, luxurious single-family house for hole in

the Wall.

A echanger: un domicile comfortable et luxueux pour un trou

dans le Mur.