BERLIN, GERMANY.-During the 2007 Berlinale, the Neue Nationalgalerie’s upper, ground-floor exhibition space will host Pavel Braila, a video artist originally from Moldavia and participant in the German Academic Exchange Service’s (DAAD) Berlin Artists-in-Residence programme.

Within this framework, Pavel Braila will present his 2005 work “Barons’ Hill” to a German audience for the first time. This six-part video work showcases a new and vainglorious Sinti and Roma architecture currently arising in Moldavia characterised by a hubris of stylistic elements from the history of architecture. Pavel Braila’s camera seems to stroll along the facades and through the rooms of these uninhabited houses. The use of slow motion adds to the pathos of the images, emphasized still more in the overall presentation by the form of two triptychs. Music by Johann Sebastian Bach underscores the production.

With the installation in the upper space of Mies van der Rohe’s exhibition hall, Pavel Braila seeks the dialogue between entirely different utopias, each making their own use of the language of architecture. In contrast to Mies van der Rohe’s idealistic architecture, Pavel Braila’s architectural collage “found” in the area known as Barons' Hill finds its expression in hybrid quotes from modernity. The projection of the video will run throughout the night to take advantage of the Nationalgalerie’s transparency and make the work visibly accessible to visitors outside the building.

Braila’s picturesque video confirms the fascination with a new kind of luxury; a new prosperity that finds its exaggerated expression in the form of gilded bronze bars that can be laid out as parquet flooring. In variation to previous installations, where Braila has installed the flooring, in Berlin it will be presented in its crating, as sheer volume, physically embodying its potential as a large, golden surface.

An exhibition by the Artist-in-Residence Programme / DAAD in co-operation with the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.