About the Project…
in September 2015, artists Margaret Cahill, Wolf Bertram Becker, David Gledhill and Peter Lewis, were invited to visit the site of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Village by its current owner, DKB Stiftung für Gesellschaftliches Engagement Berlin and Palis Advisory GmbH Berlin, who initiated and organised the project.The artists have spent the past year producing work in response to the site, and Berlin 1936 is the first UK showing of the Project.
The first exhibition of the work took place in Berlin at DKB Deutsche Kreditbank’s headquarters during July and August 2016 and was transferred to the Gymnasium at the Village itself for Germany’s ‘Day of the Open Monument’ in September 2016.This expanded UK edition of the Project features painting, printmaking, collage, video and 3D pieces and includes previously unseen and specially produced new work.
On interviewed Gledhill said… ‘For me, the three days spent at the 1936 Olympic Village near Berlin were transformative. The aspects of the Village that struck me with such force were those that I later discovered had been overlooked or marginalised in the written accounts of ‘Hitler’s Games’ I was lucky enough to be able to get hold of material that enabled me to construct what John Berger called a ‘radial narrative’; a kind of constellation of paintings, prints and films that cross-reference each other and tell the story of the Games from multiple perspectives.’
University of Bolton Fine Art 