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Chris Dercon responds to open letter from Hands Off Our Revolution & e-flux

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#1

This statement from Chris Dercon, sent to e-flux today, is a response to “An Open Letter to Chris Dercon” by Hands Off Our Revolution & e-flux, September 28, 2017.

To Hands Off Our Revolution & e-flux,

It is true that the Teatro Valle in Rome received a prize from the European Cultural Foundation Award several years ago for the commitment of the squatters and for the program they initiated there. As a member of the Jury I also supported this award at the time.

However, I must point out to you the serious differences to the situation at the Volksbühne. The Teatro Valle was closed in 2010 for budget reasons. After the closure, the theater was continued by activists, artists and citizens in its own initiative. That, despite this, the theatre was closed in 2014, I regret very much.

The Volksbühne is not a closed theater. On the contrary, we are working hard here to prepare the opening of the house in early November. The Volksbühne, like any other theater, is a sensitive, social organism whose operation since last Friday has been hampered and endangered by the occupation. As Director, I am responsible for our artists, and more than 200 employees. Most of them expressed their opposition to the occupation in order to be able to continue their work unhindered.

We believe that the occupiers are making a strong point in the issues that must have a place in our city. We have made them the offer to use the Green Salon as well as the Pavilion for these concerns. But the offer was not accepted.

Given that in this exceptional situation I had a responsibility to ensure the safety of everyone present, including employees, visitors and the occupiers. Regretfully, the cultural senator Klaus Lederer and myself had no choice but to vacate the building peacefully.

To Hands Off Our Revolution & e-flux,

Es stimmt, dass das Teatro Valle in Rom vor einigen Jahren für das Engagement der Besetzer und für das Programm, das sie dort initiierten haben, mit einem Preis vom European Cultural Foundation Award ausgezeichnet wurde. Als Jurymitglied befürwortete ich diese Preisvergabe damals.

Allerdings muss ich Sie ausdrücklich auf die gravierenden Unterschiede zur Situation an der Volksbühne hinweisen. Das Teatro Valle wurde 2010 aus Budgetgründen geschlossen. Nach der Schließung wurde das Theater von Aktivisten, Künstlern und Bürgern in Eigeninitiative weiter betrieben. Das dieses Theater trotz alledem 2014 geschlossen wurde, bedauere ich sehr.

Bei der Volksbühne handelt es sich mitnichten um ein geschlossenes Theater. Ganz im Gegenteil, arbeiten wir hier auf Hochtouren an der Eröffnung des Hauses Anfang November. Die Volksbühne, wie jedes andere Theater auch, ist ein empfindlicher, sozialer Organismus, dessen Betrieb seit letztem Freitag behindert und durch die Besetzung gefährdet wurde. Als Intendant trage ich zu allererst die Verantwortung für unsere Künstler*innen, und über 200 Mitarbeiter. Diese haben sich mehrheitlich deutlich gegen die Besetzung ausgesprochen, um ihre Arbeit unbeeinträchtigt weiterführen zu können.

Wir glauben, dass sich die Besetzer*innen für Themen stark machen, die in unserer Stadtgesellschaft einen Platz haben müssen. Wir haben ihnen angeboten, den Grünen Salon sowie den Pavillon für diese Anliegen zu nutzen. Doch das Angebot wurde nicht angenommen. Des Weiteren trug ich ebenso für die Sicherheit allderjenigen, z.B. Mitarbeiter, Besucher und Besetzer, die sich im Gebäude aufhielten. Daher blieb dem Kultursenator Klaus Lederer und mir zu unserem Bedauern keine andere Wahl als das Gebäude friedlich zu räumen.

—Chris Dercon, September 29, 2017

#2

incompetent politicians put dercon (who is great, as a museum director) in charge of a theater which was one of the few places of non-conformity, of protest, where important issues and conflicts were being discussed. you can purchase as many dance productions as you like, you will never fill this void now left after castorf and his crew were chucked out

now this place is basically destroyed.

#3

I would like to point out that the offer to use the green salon and the Pavillon was NOT refused. The decision was just postponed of one day after a 3 hour discussion (democracy).
Moreover I would like to ask to Dercon in which country he thinks to live, where if an offer is refused (or postponed) is such a situation, the mediation stops and the only solution is the eviction.

#4

“The Volksbühne, like any other theater, is a sensitive, social organism whose operation since last Friday has been hampered and endangered by the occupation.”

No one believes that. How does a Foyer occupation hamper the social organism?

Chris broke the unwritten rules of conduct when he called the police. He does not understand his theatre, he does not understand this city. That makes me so sad.

“But the offer was not accepted.”

How did he expect it to be “accepted”? Doesn’t he know how plenaries work? Why didn’t he show up and stood his ground?

Chris Dercon owns this city and its people an apology. This is the stage of the people, not of Chris Dercon. He is the servant of the people, not their master. Shame.

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#5

The eviction of the Volksbühne last Thursday is the sore climax of an unhappy series of events that function as a picture perfect example of another very destructive discourse, that abused an actual trajectory and an important discussion for a proxy battle of a vast panoply of personal interests.

A couple of months before the critique had turned into a collective agitation against Chris Dercon by means of bashing and verbal violence there were some decent arguments against his appointment and his program. Some of the apprehension stated beforehand was quite apparently confirmed when the program was published.

This argumentational basis could have served to create a productive ground, on which this political decision as well as the intricacies that come along with it, could have been discussed, considering the outstanding characteristics of Berlin and a stage like the Volksbühne with its history.

Instead a great part of the protagonists directly involved, as well as the Feuilleton and a number of positions from the Berlin art community have contributed to turning this discussion in to a battlefield for their career driven agenda, content they wanted to contribute for a long time anyway and a variety of personal subjects.

This tendency culminated in the discussion of the occupation, how Sven Lütticken points out elaborately in his article for Texte zur Kunst: https://www.textezurkunst.de/articles/sven-lutticken-volksbuhne-occupation/

The occupation, indeed, wasn’t very well done. Again there were decent arguments posed against the language, the aesthetical means and strategies the occupiers used, the stage was left empty and the bodies in alliance by their mere presence did not fulfill the need of an explicit demand or a differentiated discussion.

Nevertheless, the occupation opened up a space that could have been regarded a chance for Chris Dercon as well as Klaus Lederer to finally engage in a dialogue, not only with the occupiers themselves but in a series of discussions open to the public, with the occupiers, press, critics etc. On the other hand it could have been seen as an appropriate setting for the critique to send a short reminder on the decisive arguments that had been stated before the debate turned into a scripted reality soap that issued into the eviction and Chris Dercon taking the role that in a collective effort had been written for him.

What went down here cannot simply be blamed neither on Klaus Lederer, Chris Dercon himself, nor on the occupiers. If we want to blame somebody, we need to blame ourselves. We, the protagonists of the Berlin art community in a fruitful collaboration with the Feuilleton, have collectively succeeded in getting rid of the constructive potentials of this discussion. We have spouted our energies in discourse-as-backdrop that has found its disconcerting peak with the eviction of the occupation.

I would love to say that all of this simply states that for a place like Berlin the arts still function as “the unchallenged arena of discourse.” Unfortunately I have to say instead, that this scenario is an example of just another very destructive discourse in this city, that used an an actual discussion for a substitute contest of a broad palette of agendas, agglomerated to a clickbait scenario that succeeded in reproducing empty phrases, agitation and superficial rhetoric.

Well done, Berlin.

#6

Such elite talk does not suit a stage of the people in this city.

Mr. Chris Dercon sullied his agenda on his own by taking the police to the stage. It was his decision, completely lawful and unacceptable. You just don’t do that. Period. If you do that, you are not capable to give satisfaction anymore. You become a paria and are supposed to be treated as such by the Berlin community.

“What went down here cannot simply be blamed neither on Klaus Lederer, Chris Dercon himself, nor on the occupiers. If we want to blame somebody, we need to blame ourselves.”

No Stockholm syndrome, please. No one forced Chris Dercon to call the police. Not even the AfD expected him to act upon their request.

#7

As a London, art world political and aesthetic lefty its hard to see what Tate Modern is good for if it is not honing liberal(neo) cultural sottise (Tillmans excepted) and Dercon has not shown that he has escaped its effects, even in accepting such a post. At the same time it might be part of a longer trend of the gradual drift of cultural authority from “practices” to practises of commentary, performance studies for performance. A kind of myth structure of the age of the mass produced art PhD. After seing Castorf’s Ring in Bayreuth I cannot imagine a more complex practice of one thing with another, and the question should be how can that kind of working be re-enabled. Maybe a white male curator from this establishment is not a good a priori? Even starting from that I can imagine beter choices. Berlin, Tate, British Museum, the new radical intellectual kitsch?

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#8

scary to think that the switch from castorf (who actively embraced conflict and critique of the post-DDR consumer society) to dercon (who has openly said that he wants to avoid any confrontations and embrace ‘collaboration and connection’) was a political strategy rather than just stupidity and incompetence of the Berlin city council.