This monographs presents a decade of Wudtke's artistic work on
gentrification in the city of Berlin.
Gentrification is not a law of nature, it is a war against the poor. It
is a carefully planned development in cities, where it is welcomed and
supported by political actors who prefer wealthy citizens. From 2008 until
2018, Berlin artist Ina Wudtke's works focused on the displacement of low
income tenants from their apartments in the city center, through massive
rent hikes and with the help of judicial instruments like the so-called
"Modernisierungsklage", a tool used by landlords to revamp apartments for
future high income tenants, or the so-called "Eigenbedarfsklage", whereby
the new owners of former public housing claim occupancy against longterm
tenants. The Fine Art of Living shows the political historical
aspects behind the reality, the downside of the process by which both
former East German state-owned buildings and West German public housing
were turned into a profit-seeking real estate business.
In her research-based work, artist Ina Wudtke (born 1968, lives and works
in Berlin) questions hegemonic political and societal discourses and
strenghtens counter-discourses on themes such as gender,
work and housing. From
1992 until 2004 she edited the queer-feminist
artist magazine NEID. With Belgian philosopher Dieter Lesage,
she wrote the book Black Sound White Cube (Vienna, 2010). In
2011, she released a conceptual album on gentrification entitled The
Fine Art of Living under her pseudonym T-INA Darling.
