BERLIN.- Nationalgalerie and Stiftung des Vereins der Freunde der Nationalgalerie announced the donation of a work by the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset. “Statue of Liberty” is now on permanent display in the courtyard of Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin.

Manhattan’s Statue of Liberty is regarded as a symbol of unlimited freedom. The monumental sculpture once welcomed migrants arriving on ships to the New World and quickly became an emblem of New York. The eponymous installation by the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset references its status as a popular tourist attraction. Their "Statue of Liberty" (2018), however, consists of a concrete segment of the Berlin Wall and an ATM. As a donation by the collector Heiner Wemhöner the sculpture now welcomes the visitors of Hamburger Bahnhof.

The sculpture initially results in a sharp, absurd image: a cash-dispensing device has been inserted into an opening of the Iron Curtain that once separated East and West Berlin. The paradoxical fusion of two objects representing two systems – capitalist West and communist East – raises questions about the current state of the city of Berlin and its development since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall formerly symbolized the Cold War and restrictions on individual freedom, while the parts of it still standing today often serve simply as backdrops for holiday snapshots. During the post-reunification period, Berlin was regarded as an immature city full of free spaces; this perception of freedom is however becoming ever rarer due to gentrification. There is also ever more commercialization and marketing aimed towards winning the money of international visitors, as evidenced by the many new cash machines located on the storefronts of independent traders in party districts. Elmgreen & Dragset’s "Statue of Liberty" is 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.