
John Gossage
As centers of social power, cities inevitably take on metaphorical power as well. In recent decades no city has acquired a more complicated symbolic value than Berlin. In part this stems from its central position in both history and global politics, and in part it comes from its special status within the German Federal Republic and the support given to art there. Whatever the causes, a recent spate of artworks and exhibitions in which Berlin has been taken more as a metaphor than a city testifies to its power as image.
In the 11 massive photographs shown here, made in both East and West Berlin