Focus art: How “Tropez” pacifies an open-air swimming pool in Berlin

2023-08-26 12:30:14

Opinion Focus Art

How to pacify an outdoor pool in Berlin

Status: 26.08.2023 | Reading time: 3 minutes

Parrot von Dardan Zhegrova

Quelle: Ink Agop

In an outdoor pool in Berlin-Wedding, the art initiative “Tropez” has been calming people down for years. How the district has changed with the arrival of the lively free art scene – and why it is now worried about its future.

The announcement that people are going to the swimming pool has been causing worried faces in Berlin for a few months. Especially when you talk about it with people who don’t live in the capital and like to read dramatic push notifications. After the riots in Neukölln and Pankow, the topic of “outdoor pool” is always accompanied by a rolling of the eyes, as if there were daily scuffles on every diving board. This is anything but new, outdoor pools have always been considered a problem area for leisure activities. The numbers speak a completely different language. And the experience too.

One of the most beautiful outdoor pools in the city is hidden away in the Humboldthain – with a great slide. The district of Wedding touches Mitte here – but this meeting is now as much a part of the neighborhoods as the very philosophical Café Julius and the post-colonial Kunsthaus Savvy are at the focal point of Nettelbeckplatz. Girls in burkinis appear at the edge of the swimming pool, female students have fallen asleep over their textbooks on the meadow, couples are enjoying the sun tightly embraced, an older man is watching the hustle and bustle.

Fiction certificate for immigrants

For the last seven years, however, people have not only swum in the Humboldthain, but also shown art, worked with children and celebrated performances. „Tropez“ is the name of Nele Heinevetter’s initiative, which started with fries and has now firmly established itself. Not only as a place for the art scene with a strong appeal in museums – the Hamburger Bahnhof recently bought a work -, in international institutions such as the Palais de Tokyo or in trade fairs such as Art Basel, but as an integral part of everyday swimming pool life.

The “Tropez” pavilion in the Humboldthain outdoor pool

Quelle: Ink Agop

A yellow stuffed parrot by Dardan Zhegrova suddenly looks out of the bushes, a block of marble by the well-known Berlin artist Marina Loboda shows the mysterious imprint of a creature that – very humanly – wears jeans but also has a long tail.

The block is used by a woman with a tied headscarf to store drinks and provisions. A butterfly creature by Christina Krys Huber hovers far behind between the trees and a wiry pavilion by Jimmy Beauquesne invites you to take a selfie. “Believe” is the name of the current summer exhibition, curated by Sophie Boysen, who is now a permanent curator of “Tropez” thanks to diligent acquisitions. She’s just preparing Miriam Kongstad’s performance “Free-Fall” – the big one end of the summer season am 2. September.

Maria Loboda’s The Sacred Rock of Tropez from 2023

Quelle: Ink Agop

To explain what makes this place so unique, you have to look closely at one work: a flag hoisted among the resting on a loudspeaker pole. It shows the imprint of a “Certificate of Fiction”, a work by Ghita Skali. What sounds like an invention of a term is tough official language, which many here in this place, like the artist herself, have felt. The fictional certificate is issued to people who want to stay and stay in Germany, but about whom the immigration authorities cannot or do not want to make a decision yet. A distinction is made between positive states (may enter without a visa) and negative states (they do not have a visa). As everywhere in Berlin, a few fictitious negative states are sure to gather on the lawn in the outdoor pool – for them the flag is more than a discursive work of art.

A look inside the Sinema Transtopia cinema in Berlin’s Wedding

What: Marvin Girbig

Initiatives such as “Tropez” have been very moderately but faithfully promoted in Berlin in recent years. And districts like Wedding in particular have benefited from this; Art projects that also do important social work at the same time have changed the atmosphere. But now Klaus Lederer (Die Linke) is no longer culture senator, an ambitious supporter, but the music manager Joe Chialo (CDU). And many in the independent scene are worried about their future – everywhere in Berlin.

Rumors are doing the rounds, but there have been no clear signs so far. There are places like the new cinema Sinema Transtopiaa space in which diverse social communities come together, or the exhibition space Cittipunkt, a place with a library and film program for young people, dependent on Chialo’s politics.