"Man With Briefcase"
Zeitgeist
Berlin, Germany
1982

I visited the Gropius Bau building several months before the Zeitgeist exhibition to look over possible spaces that I might use for this international show. I was assigned a corner room for my installation, which overlooked - on one side, the Berlin Wall, and on the other side, the site where the Nazi torture chambers once stood. Although this room seemed emotionally challenging for my installation, I was greatly moved by the intensity of where I was in the world at that moment and I wanted to do much more (to relieve my anxieties) than the space of this room would provide me. I suggested to the exhibition organizers that I place a giant banner on top of the building, facing both east and west Germany, with the words "All Is One" written in German, facing both sides. I was told that there could be no work placed outside the building by any of the artists, apparently so as not to disturb the political peace in the area at that moment. I then suggested that I place a giant "Man With Briefcase" silhouette into the overhead skylight in the central exhibition space area. This image, which I had often used as a personal symbol as I traveled from place to place to do my exhibitions, could now have a more site-specific meaning in this particular situation. And this was because, on the floor below the skylight, Joseph Beuys, was exorcizing the demons from his past with one of his beautiful and magical installations. I told nobody else, including the organizers, what my real reasons were for suggesting this image in this location, but for me, this "Man With Briefcase", with the "signature" Beuys hat on his head, looked like an image hovering above from Beuys' Luftwaffe past - an image which seemed only to complete his exorcism below. I doubt if anybody made that connection (at least not consciously), and I've never spoken about it before now. It wasn't done to offend Mr Beuys, but only to add to, as well as complete, the particular thrust of energy in that space. As for the specific room I had been assigned, I decided that I would paint red rubies all over the walls and ceiling (the "Red Ruby" first came to me in a dream and has always been the symbol for my heart). Given this particular room's location (facing East Germany, located just 50 feet above the wall - and facing the torture chambers) I felt that these rubies, used as a healing symbol, would be appropriate. I added the giant grey ruby, along with the beautiful red ones, to reflect the actual situation at the wall at that moment. And finally, I added a flying man jumping out of the window from the ruby room and over the Berlin Wall below, into the eastern section. To compensate for this human transfer into the east, I painted a bird into the deepest corner of the ruby room using the ceiling light as beams of positive energy (see photo A6). Both the "Briefcase Man" silhouette in the main space (with its Beuys connections), and the ruby room installation (with its figure flying to the east), still did not completely satisfy the emotions I was feeling while living and working in this politically charged part of the world. The issue was freedom, or the lack of it - whether it be the war in 1942 or the Wall in 1982. To be honest (and I've never publicly spoken about this before now), I did do some private and secret inquiries as to how I could blow a hole in the wall just next to the Gropius Bau building. I was advised by those who knew a lot more about explosives than myself that the amount of explosives needed to even tear away a small piece of this very thick concrete wall would also blow out all of the windows in the adjoining buildings, as well as put the lives of innocent people at risk. And so, no matter how emotional I felt about this issue, this idea was quickly dropped in favor of painting a "Running Man" (me) on the Berlin Wall, which was completed in one evening with the help of several assistants and a ladder. Finally, for the opening night of the Zeitgeist exhibition, I placed a small painting (cardboard cutout) of a red ruby on the hill composed of dirt and rubble which adjoined the entranceway to the exhibition. This huge mound of earth was all that was left of the Nazi torture chambers which had been plowed under and marked with an official sign. Since there was no electricity out there at this site, I placed a lit flashlight with fresh batteries on the ground below the ruby facing upwards, and I hoped that at least a few people saw this image as they walked into the exhibition for that opening night. One night, during those emotional 12 days when I lived and worked in Berlin, I had the following dream: I dreamed that a wild dog swept into a garden of birds (all lined up in perfect rows) and grabbed one of the birds in its mouth. After I returned to California, I illustrated this dream in the form of a large charcoal drawing, and 2 years later, in 1984, I painted this dream image on the ceiling of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem as part of my installation (see #25 under Installations).