An exhibition about death may not sound all that enticing. Nonetheless, 'Tod', the fourth in the 'Fraktale' series of contemporary art exhibitions mounted by Jonas Burgert and Ingolf Keiner in Berlin, is likely to prove a big popular success. That is because of its setting: the gaunt, gutted Palast der Republik, the former seat of government of the German Democratic Republic. When the exhibition closes, on 22 October, the building will be demolished.The likelihood that it would be destroyed was increased by the discovery that it was constructed with asbestos, which took three years to remove. Arguably, no use has suited it better than its present embodiment as an exhibition space, as its long vistas of ravaged steel beams are perfectly attuned to the contemporary fashion for displaying art in abandoned industrial buildings. Certainly, the twenty-five artists who have contributed to 'Tod' have risen to the setting, often with macabre wit: Birgit Dieker has made a vast amoeba-like shape out of 200 life belts and Benjamin Bergmann has constructed a seat inside a ten-metre-high catapult made from elastic bands--ready to project its occupant into a new life.
Jonas Burgert painting shows female power, and the polar instincts of intimacy and aggression. Six women are gathered together in a strange environment, their dress and choices of weapon each representative of a different moment in time from prehistory to the present. They sit, squat and stand calmly as if debating some sort of violent offensive, the cue for which will come from the central figure caught within the blue crosshairs. Strange creatures move between them, while behind, on a mazy backdrop of golden, latticed wallpaper, hangs a constellation of spherical forms; a conscious juxtaposition on the artist's part of "the meditative chaos of nature and the interrelated elements of human cultures"."To do something strange, like pick up a planet, it is first necessary to change one's mind and body to become a part of a ritual," says Burgert. "One needs spiritual copies of oneself in order to have a dialogue between one's inner characters."A fantastical cast of characters, both animal and human, keep watch over a glowing white orb; the prize of the Mondjäger (or "Moon Hunter") referred in the painting's title.