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Deutsches Haus at NYU presents the exhibition opening of Gesche Würfel's "The Absence and Presence of the Berlin Wall." Thirty-four years after German reunification, the country's division is still perceptible in many areas of life following Germany’s reunification from 1990. After living abroad for almost two decades, Gesche Würfel set out with her camera to search for clues to the former inner-German divide along the 160 km long Berlin Wall Trail whilst participating in the International Studio Program at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin in 2021/22. In places where the Berlin Wall was erected as a border fortification system on the orders of the GDR government in August 1961, there are now new forms of inclusion and exclusion but also places offering no clues to their history.
With this project, Würfel aims to locate spaces where the remnants of the Wall are still present, spaces where the physical division of the Wall has ceased to exist, and spaces where the mental construct of the Wall continues to persist. Deutsches Haus NYU will exhibit 8 (out of 61) composites and 8 (out of 23) collages. All of these, including the portraits and interviews, will be published by DISTANZ (Berlin, Germany) in spring 2025.
The exhibition opening will be held on November 14, from 6 to 8 PM, and will include a conversation between the photographer Gesche Würfel and Sarah Girner, who runs the cultural program at Deutsches Haus at NYU. The exhibition will remain on view at Deutsches Haus at NYU through February 7, 2025.
Gesche Würfel is a visual artist and a Visiting Arts Professor in the Department of Photo & Imaging at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She holds an MFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA), an MA in Photography and Urban Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London (UK), and a Diploma in Spatial Planning from the Technical University Dortmund (Germany).
Her work has been exhibited, published, and awarded internationally. Exhibition venues include Tate Modern, London (UK), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (DE), David Zwirner (USA), Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh (USA), Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University (USA), Goldsmiths Center for Contemporary Art (UK), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (USA), and Singapore International Photography Festival (SG).
Würfel is the author of Basement Sanctuaries (Schilt Publishing, 2014) and The Absence and Presence of the Berlin Wall (DISTANZ, 2025). Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, WIRED, Slate, and many other outlets. She is a recipient of grants from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany, the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, the NYU Office of the Provost, the NYU Center for the Humanities, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Puffin Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), among others. She was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2007. Collecting institutions are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Museum, MA (USA), the Portland Museum of Art, OR (USA), and the Pensacola Museum of Art, FL (USA). Würfel is represented by Tracey Morgan Gallery.
This exhibition and opening event are made possible through an endowment established by Roger J. Schnetzer.