A selection of works in public spaces
Zur Lage des Hauptes, 1990
The work »Zur Lage des Hauptes« (On the position of the Head), which Via Lewandowsky realized in 1990 as part of the Berlin exhibition project »Die Endlichkeit der Freiheit«, revolves around the question of the different perception of history in East and West. In this work, the Lewandowsky relates two extremely historic monuments: the Victory Column in the western part of the capital, which was unveiled in 1873 to commemorate several wars on Königsplatz and was moved in 1939 by the National Socialists in the course of the city's redevelopment on today's square, the Großer Stern. And the former Nazi Reich Aviation Ministry of Hermann Göring in the eastern part of the city, which was also used by ministries during the GDR era and today houses the Federal Ministry of Economics and the Federal Ministry of Finance. There are historic, monumental murals at both locations: on the Victory Column a mosaic from 1875 based on a design by Anton von Werner, on the former Nazi Reich Aviation Ministry a porcelain painting based on a design by Max Lingner from 1952 (which replaced a relief from the Nazi era). Lewandowsky made a 1: 1 frottage of the victory column mosaic and covered the Lingner mural with the frottage. The victory column mosaic was in turn covered with white styrofoam and bathed in glistening light at night.
Nagelschatten, 2020
For his installation “Nagelschatten” Via Lewandowsky hammered a million nails into the asphalt in front of the documentation center of the Deutschlandhaus in Berlin. They form an irregular grid of shiny silver dots and mark the location of countless escape and suffering stations. The nail is the form and expression of remembrance and remembrance: Every single nail is like the marking of a stage, an escape between the starting point and the end point. This creates a dense fabric of intersecting or side-by-side paths. The nails symbolize dimensions of flight, displacement and forced migration in the past and present.
Good God, 2019
The ten-meter-wide light sculpture “Good God” by Via Lewandowsky shone from December 18, 2019 to February 2, 2020 at a lofty height between the towers above the east choir of Bamberg Cathedral. It was part of the exhibition project "The Spark of God - Treasure + Chambers of Wonder in the Bamberg Diocesan Museum".
Red Carpet, 2003
Via Lewandowsky's “Red Carpet” was created for the second headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Defense in the so-called “Bendler Block” in Berlin. If you enter the building's central columned hall, which is around 200 square meters in size and almost 17 meters high and is characterized by massive pillars, columns and balustrades, the 5 x 10 meter textile installation with its 1 cm high pile looks almost decorative. But the carpet quickly proves to be a picture puzzle. What at first flickers as a diffuse mixture of associations of fire and blood, gains contours with increasing distance. The carpet shows its “true” pattern more clearly from each higher floor, namely the aerial view of the bombed-out Berlin district of Tiergarten, including the destroyed “Bendler Block”, based on a photograph from 1945.
The Hotel, 2005
For the 2005 Landesausstellung in Tirol, Via Lewandowsky transformed the Salzlager Hall into a hotel with 24 rooms under the motto “The future of nature”. To furnish the hotel rooms, he put together a mix of staged furniture as well as museum exhibits and works by contemporary artists, chosen with great skill and irony.