installation, stage elements (variable),
4 red textile banners (language
Norwegian or German),
2 blue textile panels (door),
2 molton framed tulle panels
with silver texts (German)
two videos (The Days of the Commune,
DDR 1966 & Nederlaget,
Norway 1966), German original
The Defeat (Berlin 1947),
black stools, 2022

The Days of the Commune, installation Møre Og Romsdal Kunstsenter, Molde (Norway) 2022

The Days of the Commune

The installation The Days of the Commune by Ina Wudtke refers to the play by the authors Bertolt Brecht, Margarete Steffin and Ruth Berlau. This play is based on Steffin’s translation of the play Nederlaget by the Norwegian author Nordahl Grieg. Grieg, a staunch communist, fought against fascism, as did Brecht, Steffin and Berlau. In his play Nederlaget about the Paris Commune, he reflected on his experiences in the Spanish Civil War of 1937. Brecht, Steffin, Berlau and also Grieg followed the revolutionary motto of art as a weapon by using their writings in the political struggle of their time. In 1966, both Grieg’s Nederlaget and The Days of the Commune by Brecht, Steffin and Berlau were produced for television (of the GDR and Norway). Ina Wudtke’s installation of textiles and stage elements, combines various representations of the German and Norwegian plays. The stage set is that of the scene in which the discussions take place after the revolutionary seizure of power in the Paris City Hall (which exists in both plays). Banners previously carried in the streets now adorn the walls of the town hall with slogans for freedom of the press, the right to vote, and the right to assemble. The two videos of the TV adaptations from 1966 bear witness to the working method of Brecht, Steffin, Berlau who took over the structure and scenes of Nederlaget and merely rewrote the dialogues. Ina Wudtke combined the installation in the Norwegian exhibition The Paris Commune & Beyond with the video documentation of a performance with Dieter Lesage in exactly this set in which they performed Lesage’s text Parliament and the Commune, a plea for a radical democracy of the present.

The Paris Commune & Beyond, exhibition view Møre Og Romsdal Kunstsenter,
Molde (Norway), 2022

The Paris Commune & Beyond, exhibition view Møre Og Romsdal Kunstsenter,
Molde (Norway), 2022

The Paris Commune & Beyond, exhibition view Møre Og Romsdal Kunstsenter,
Molde (Norway), 2022