Bernd Behr's House Without a Door at Chisenhale Gallery

Bernd Behr's first solo exhibition at a UK art center, held at Chisenhale Gallery in London from November 8 to December 17, 2006, featured his film House Without a Door. The film explores a secret US military site in the Utah desert where exact replicas of Berlin housing estates were built during World War II by German immigrant architect Erich Mendelsohn, completed by Hollywood studio RKO, and used as bombing targets. Now part of the Center for Land Use Interpretation, where Behr completed a residency, the site inspired the film. The title references a lost German Expressionist film. The film uses long takes, shadows, abrupt light changes, and a scene with gloved hands moving model tower blocks, creating an unsettling atmosphere. The soundtrack is by Marcus Fjellstrom. Behr draws parallels between crises: WWII, the 1920s, and the present, questioning the ethics of an immigrant architect aiding in bombing the German proletariat. The exhibition also included a double-page spread of photographs and text in Vertigo, a London cinema magazine, serving as a parallel space to the gallery.