Olaf Nicolai – Helenes Auto

Olaf Nicolai 
Helenes Auto, 2018

Edition of 35 + 5 AP.
Material: paper, photographic paper.
Dimensions: 14.8 x 21 cm (closed), 29.6 x 21 cm (open).

Facsimile of the vehicle registration document of a Mercedes-Benz Ponton that once belonged to Helene Weigel.

Produced alongside the public workshop Hier wird heute Abend ein Mensch wie ein Auto ummontiert / Ohne dass er irgendetwas dabei verliert. Brecht in der Autowerkstatt by Olaf Nicolai, in collaboration with the Berliner Ensemble. This workshop showed the assembly and repair of a Mercedes-Benz Ponton, which once belonged to Helene Weigel, the former intendant of the Berliner Ensemble and Bertolt Brecht’s wife. The garage visits were structured in traditional shifts and enabled exciting insights into labor at various levels. And at the same time, Brecht’s learning play Man Equals Man was developed with actors. Here, questions are raised about the nature of performance and theater as well as the meaning of labor in the context of contemporary economics and art production.