Artists: James Gregory Atkinson, Leila Bencharnia, Sonya Clark, Andrii Dostliev & Lia Dostlieva, Ângela Ferreira, Masimba Hwati, patricia kaersenhout, Ariel Orah, Kirsten Reese, Matana Roberts, Dread Scott, Katharina Warda
Eslanda Cardozo Goode Robeson (1895–1965) and Paul Robeson (1898–1976) were two exceptional figures of the 20th century. Their political and artistic work was an expression of a way of thinking that understood the world in relation, and of uncompromising resistance to all forms of oppression. The exhibition and festival project Every Artist Must Take Sides – Resonances of Eslanda and Paul Robeson by the Akademie der Künste is dedicated to their lived practice and its relevance for today. In dialogue with materials from the Paul Robeson Archive, twelve artistic positions – in sound and spatial installations, video works, sculptures, collages and photographs – negotiate questions of solidarity, collective freedom and mutual responsibility.
The Paul Robeson Archive was founded 60 years ago at the former Akademie der Künste (East) in Berlin. The extensive collection provides an insight into the life and work of Paul Robeson – African-American singer, actor, lawyer and activist – and that of the author, anthropologist, UN correspondent, artist manager and political intellectual Eslanda Goode Robeson. The couple linked the anti-racist struggle in the USA with anti-colonial movements in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, international workers’ struggles in the spirit of socialist internationalism, and anti-fascist freedom struggles in Europe – such as the Spanish Civil War. The title of the exhibition refers to the latter: a quote from Paul Robeson’s speech at the Royal Albert Hall in 1937 in solidarity with the International Brigades, in which he called for a clear stance against fascism.
The artistic works focus on the actualisation of these resistant and relational practices, the role of voice, sound and body, and the questioning of geopolitical constellations between anti-colonial liberation movements and the Cold War. The ideas of international solidarity and universal humanity negotiated therein form the thematic space of resonance in which contemporary artistic works enter into dialogue with the archival materials.