Joseph Kosuth
Berliner Chronik, 1994

„Man kann erklären: ein Werk, das die richtige Tendenz aufweist, braucht keine weitere Qualität aufzuweisen. Man kann auch dekretieren: ein Werk, das die richtige Tendenz aufweist, muss notwendig jede sonstige Qualität aufweisen“. [“You can declare: a work that shows the correct political tendency need show no other quality. You can also declare: a work that exhibits the correct tendency must of necessity have every other quality.”]

(Walter Benjamin)

These sentences were installed by Joseph Kosuth for the first time in 1994, in the context of his exhibition BERLINER CHRONIK (Berlin Chronicles). The phrase belongs to a conceptual work, for which the artist placed quotes by Walter Benjamin in public places throughout Berlin over nine days. The quote originally stems from the article DER AUTOR ALS PRODUZENT [THE AUTHOR AS PRODUCER], which Benjamin wrote during his exile in Paris in 1934. In 1999/2000 it was permanently applied onto the building wall