East-West
by Christopher Roth
This piece is called “Zwiespalt,” which signifies discord or dispute, also dought or: of two minds. Pure discord would rather be “Zwietracht.”
The sculpture shows two figures looking at each other. One is a representational head, hand on the mouth like in a shock (Hillary Clinton in the situation room during Operation Neptune’s Spear), slightly expressionist.
The other is a modernist, cubist bust. Angular and abstract. With buttons on the side.
Two portrayals of man. Of two minds.
The modernist one is looking East, the other West.
The sandstone sculpture is from 1987, by Jürgen Pansow, GDR, two years before the wall fell.
Later I discovered that the title is not Zwiespalt but “Zwiesprache,” which signifies dialogue, conversation.