ERICH WONDER – SETS OF WONDER FOR HEINER MÜLLER

Heiner Müller: Der Lohndrücker [The Scab], Berlin, Deutsches Theater, 1988. Hermann Beyer (director), Michael Gwisdek (Schorn, party secretary), Ulrich Mühe (Stettiner) © Sibylle Bergemann – Ostkreuz

In the mid-1970s, the poet/playwright Heiner Müller and stage designer Erich Wonder met for the first time at the Schauspiel Frankfurt. The working friendship that developed was to last until Müller’s death. The two artists were shaped by very different political and aesthetic experiences, a foreignness that became the driving force behind their productive collaboration. Against the background of the political conflicts of the 1970s, Erich Wonder from Burgenland in Austria brought the reality of urban life into the black boxes of (West) German municipal playhouses. The plays of Heiner Müller from Saxony, on the other hand, ran up against the limits imposed by East Germany’s small-minded cultural policy. Müller’s impact soon extended beyond the German-speaking world, making him an important intellectual figure in European culture. The unique encounter of these two artists culminated in theatre works that set standards because, in an aesthetically breathtaking way, they reflected political developments in Germany, divided and reunited. The exhibition at Pariser Platz shows these work processes in pictures, objects, sketches and films, most of which are being exhibited for the first time; it renders the thinking of two exceptional artists visible – a reminder for the future.