elmgreen & dragset‘s installation, statue of liberty, which comprises a concrete segment of the berlin wall and a 24-hour ATM, has found a permanent home at the courtyard of the hamburger

bahnhof museum in the german capital  as a donation by the collector heiner wemhöner. the sculpture is named after manhattan’s statue of liberty, a symbol of unlimited freedom that once

welcomed migrants arriving on ships to the new world, and which has since become a popular tourist attraction. drawing from the monumental sculpture’s latter status, the artist duo has

created an installation that addresses berlin’s history, and at the same time acts as a warning about its future. all images © staatliche museen zu berlin, nationalgalerie / mathias völzke,

resulting in a sharp, absurd image that represents two systems: capitalist west and communist east. the paradoxical fusion raises questions about the current state of the german city and its

development since the fall of the wall, which symbolized the cold war and restrictions on individual freedom, and parts of it still standing today serve simply as backdrops for holiday

snapshots. in recent years, gentrification has had a diminishing effect on the abundance of free spaces the city has been known for, while many new ATMs located on the storefronts of

independent traders in party districts signal towards the increasing commercialization and marketing, aimed towards winning the money of international visitors. statue of liberty is thus

created as a threefold work: a memorial to german separation, a monument recalling the lost time of infinite possibility directly after the fall of the wall, and a warning about the selling

off of history and the city.

image © staatliche museen zu berlin, nationalgalerie / elmar vestner, © elmgreen & dragset

image © staatliche museen zu berlin, nationalgalerie / elmar vestner, © elmgreen & dragset

location: courtyard of hamburger bahnhof, museum für gegenwart, berlin, germany