In Berlin, Walls on the Wall

The German photographer Kai Wiedenhöfer was a student when the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. It was the most “positive and exciting political event that I witnessed in my life,” he said. “It deeply moved me and never left me.”

Twenty-three years later Mr.Wiedenhöfer, now 47, is preparing to plaster 36 photographs on 364 meters of one the longest remaining portions of the Berlin wall that divided the city for 28 years. His exhibition, “Wall on Wall,” will be at Mühlenstrasse, on a part of the wall overlooking the River Spree. The photos show walls that divide people, cultures and territories in Ireland, Iraq, Cyprus, Palestine, Morocco, North and South Korea and between the U.S. and Mexican border.

Mr.Wiedenhöfer first thought of exhibiting his images on the Berlin Wall when he photographed the wall built by the Israeli government in occupied Palestinian territories in 2003, returning every six months to document the construction. The series of panoramic photographs depict life in the shadow of the wall (they were published in a book in 2007). The photographer had concluded that barriers are “proof of human weaknesses and errors, the inability of human beings to communicate with each other.”

Neil Burgess, an agent based in Britain who represents photographers such as Sebastiao Salgado and Annie Leibovitz, is a longtime supporter of Mr.Wiedenhöfer’s work and is assisting him with the project. Adrienne Goehler, a former cultural minister of the Berlin government and former head of the academy of fine arts in Hamburg, is curating the exhibition.

It took Mr.Wiedenhöfer five years to receive permission for the project from the city of Berlin. The permit was finally granted when Mr.Wiedenhöfer’s propos! al included a variety of images of walls taken between 2006 and 2012 after his experience in Palestine. The aim, he said, is to stress that walls and border fences are no solution to today’s global political and economic problems.

The back and forth with the Berlin municipality did take a toll on Mr.Wiedenhöfer and Ms. Goehler, however.
“It almost drove us crazy,” said Ms. Goehler. “We had all kinds of offers to do the exhibition if we left out the wall in the West Bank. The most astonishing fact was that officials had this idea that walls have only one narrative. What is most important for me is the human aspect â€" that these walls are separating people.”

In all, Mr.Wiedenhöfer made 21 trips for his project, which is also planned as a book, to be published in German and English, called “Co-Frontiers.”

Mr.Wiedenhöfer worked in Northern Ireland in the 1990s,and was dismayed, when he returned to Belfast in 2008, to see construction of what are called “peace lines” stretching over 34 kilometers. Images of this stark barrier and othersâ€"the highly controlled wall and border between North and South Korea; the dilapidated wall in Nicosia, Cyprus; barriers in Ceuta and Melilla â€" fragments of Spain in Morocco; a wall in Baghdad built by the U.S. Army, or the nine-meter high concrete wall snaking through the West Bank are among the images that will be on view.

Taken with large-format panoramic cameras, Mr.Wiedenhöfer’s photographs will be next to a seg! ment of t! he wall that has recently became a subject of intense controversy: Developers hope to tear down a portion of it in order to erect luxury apartment buildings; protesters have been fighting to retain the wall as a historical monument.

Given the history of tagging and street art on the wall, Ms. Goehler said she would be very interested in the public’s reaction. Mr.Wiedenhöfer recently conducted a three-week experiment in Berlin exhibiting his photograph of the barrier in Tijuana; it was left undamaged.

“Nothing happened, people respected it,” said Ms. Goehler, who hopes the exhibition will travel to countries where there are walls. “I would be so happy if my prognosis were correctâ€"that people can make the difference between quality and junk. It is an open and collective process, a space for debate.”

“The Berlin Wall was proof that peace begins only when they fall.” Said Mr.Wiedenhöfer.

“Wall onWall” will be on view through July.