Toulouse: James Colomina exhibits in Berlin to commemorate the fall of the Wall
Toulouse street artist James Colomina has installed his red resin sculptures in Berlin to display the 32 years since the fall of the Wall.
On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. This wall, formed on August 13, 1961, separated the city for twenty-eight years. A physical but also ideological barrier that the Toulouse artist James Colomina, to celebrate his 32nd birthday, wanted to transform into a wall “that we go beyond” and “that we cross”. With the installation last weekend of “Mandy”, a seven-year-old girl, dressed in red, this wall becomes that of freedom and happiness. “The girl, with her teddy bear, briskly spans the East Side Gallery, a 1.3 km long piece of wall, left after the fall, to give free rein to artistic expression,” explains the artist. We can also see a multitude of little hands painting passers-by. A true open-air art gallery. I also gave the first name of Mandy to this work, simply because before the Fall of the Wall, it was very common among East German girls ”.
Further on on a pylon of the U1 metro line, “the child in the mask”, proudly sits in the seat. A game of ten years, in hoodie and gas mask. “A reference to our society which can turn out to be oppressive: the mask that can recall the one for covid or even against atmospheric pollution”.
If James Colomina is exhibiting for the first time in the German city, he regularly installs his works in resin on monuments all over Paris and Toulouse. Last year, he posed his sculpture in front of the Senate in Paris Child in a hat, to question the age of sexual consent. In 2019, he placed his son Child in donkey hat on one of the pillars of the base of the Mirabeau bridge (Paris, 15th arrondissement).
James Colomina is also exhibiting more and more internationally, notably in galleries in New York, Miami and London. He does not forget, however, his hometown: “I have great projects in store for Toulouse in 2022-2023”, affirms this artist who now makes a living from his work.
In this new Berlin work, this familiar with installations in urban spaces once again symbolizes his quest for freedom and a better world.