Ersan Mondtag – building material for the future

Ersan Mondtag, that much can be said with certainty, is a theater artist who is polarized. Since he was invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the first time at the Staatstheater Kassel ten years ago, his name has been known in the theater world. The second invitation to the festival followed in 2019, and this weekend his directorial work »Double Serpent« from the Wiesbaden State Theater will be shown twice as part of this year’s theater meeting.

After announcing the invitation in January of this year, not only the anticipation of the Mondagians was heard, but also an unmistakable eye roll. But what do his critics bother? In short: the accusation is aestheticism. Moondays, so a few think, creates atmospheric visual worlds, but can only fill it to a limited extent and scenic. Some consider the artificial stage realities that he creates, even a stitch, just a fashionable.

For someone, who – not only meant well -intentionally – is attested to a great closeness to the visual art, the trip to this sister art of the theater is only consistent. Last year, at the invitation of the curator Çağla Ilk, he and Yael Bartana equipped the German pavilion at the 60th Kunstbiennale of Venice with his works. Not a bad start to open up a new field of work.

“Monument for an unknown person” is the title of Mondags Biennale contribution. And the unknown person is his grandfather. Hasan Aygün, who in the 1960s, as a so -called guest worker from Turkey, entered the Economic Wonderland of the Federal Republic and gave his working life for the upswing. In a performative order, Ersan Mondtag gave him an honorary burial in the lagoon city. Catching up justice.

He borrowed the work title of Brecht’s poem: “Instructions for the upper” from the “Reading book for urban residents”. Of the unknown fallen soldier, Brecht writes, is thought “from London to Singapore”. And he suggests: “But despite all of this, you should/ perhaps be ordered/ that the unknown man/ from the big cities of the populated continents/ is finally given an honor.” Hasan Aygün is the unknown migrant from the last century.

Now the exhibits from Venice are expanded to include new works and gathered under a new concept in the König gallery in Berlin. The exhibition is named “asbestos”. Asbestos also means the material with the moon day grandfather day in, day out. 28 years. He worked at Eternit in West Berlin. The protective roof over the Federal Republican Bürgerstuben cost him health. Soon after the end of his professional life, he wanted to return to Turkey, the lungs failed his services.

Mondag has had a 28 survival -sized busts for each working year, some of which are exhibited in the gallery. It looks sublime, worthy. The sculptures are based on steles, which are covered with the discarded parquet of a long-closed theater in Saxony-Anhalt. Down -to -earth, you could say. It is not idealized here: the 28 years have left clearly visible traces.

Furnishing objects, furniture, set pieces of rooms are exhibited as installations. All of this is reconstructed from the memory, explains Mondtag. He had a through rich building in the kitchen, although there was no such thing in the home of his grandfather. It is a reminiscence of workers’ apartments in the GDR. In general, Mondtag makes one or the other parallel between the “guest workers” and the East Germans migrated to the Federal Republic after 1990.

Numerous Eternit panels had Mondtag printed. They show the opposite side of gainful employment: private admission, especially in the family circle, provide the image of a happy man. In between there is also an X -ray of both lungs. The work was a promise of promotion for Hasan Aygün, she enrolled into his everyday life and also in his body.

The plates shimmer almost golden. You have to approach close to see the details of the recordings. Like the busts, the grandfather experiences an exaggeration without any ironic well, but his fate is not denied. The contradictions find a convincing form.

Anyone who knows Ersan Mondtags may be amazed at this exhibition. The shrill exaggerations and glaring pictures of his productions do not find any place in his artistic work. The primary conceptual access is probably the same in both creative worlds. But the reference to the “unknown person” is amazed, the artist has so far not noticed Brecht as a follower (although he has already brought a “triad opera” on stage in Krakow). His direction primarily focus on atmospheric. It is at least astonishing that he comes into a more analytical negotiation in the visual arts and in dealing with his own family history.

Ersan Mondtag: “Asbestos”, until June 22, Gallery König, Alexandrinenstraße 118–121, 10969 Berlin.
“Double Serpent” at the theater meeting: 17th and 18.5.
www.berlinerfestspiele.de