Trapani ArtProcess 2007 - Network - Lutz Wahler, Lars Harmsen, Elke Weisbarth Stereotypo Caught in the net – clichés and other entanglements from the sea of love and hate between German and Italian culture.A symphony of words, a picture of sounds, a resonance of values standing in paradoxical ambivalence towards each other. Trapani 06/2007 read on: a fishing net holding cartons printed with phrases and images is hanging in the middle of the room at the Pesceria of Trapani. Some of the cartons have fallen out of the net. The sides of the cartons are printed with the finest clichés which the equivocal friend or foe relationship between Germany and Italy throws up. Italians admire the Germans but they don’t love them. Germans love the Italians but don’t respect them. A long history of cultural exchange binds Germany and Italy. The ancient Romans spread their language, architecture, social organization, cuisine and administration over Europe and hence Germany too. In later history, there has been a permanent exchange of products, work, bodily fluids, primi or secondi piatti or contorni. As positive as this international exchange often is, so destructive it can be at a regional level in the eyes of the other. Football matches between the two countries such as during the last World Cup are a cauldron of emotions where chants and insults get bandied back and forth in the same old worn-out clichés. Our work is an attempt to focus on the ambivalence of this love and hate relationship, the admiration and the disdain, and put it into the picture for the art process. Bella Figura, Bella Processo, Arte Processo! Prosecco! Lutz Wahler, Lars Harmsen, Elke Weisbarth Trapani 06/2007
