Guy David Briller (b. 1970) is a Jewish-Israeli multidisciplinary artist who works with various mediums – performance, video, photography, live broadcast, sculpture, installation and print – in the multiple aspects of public art, with an emphasis on action, documentation, dialogue and orientation. His love and hatred for Jerusalem, the divided city where he lived for many years, has become a major theme in his art. Briller moved to Berlin with his family 12 years ago and now lives and works in Kreuzberg. His move to the city has inspired new urban actions and research concerning the intrinsic relations between Judaism and German culture.

In his first exploration, Briller created the project “Several Testimonies on the Short Life and Death of Alter J in Jerulin” (2012), where he invented Jerulin, an utopian-dystopian space that unites Jerusalem and Berlin, moving back and forth between the present and the historical memory of both cities. The actions were performed by the artist and other partners in places such as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Reichstag and others.

In 2022, he extended his journey to another city in Germany: Kassel. There, in the context of the controversial Documenta 15, he created a series of actions titled: “A Forgiveness Journey – Eine Reise der Vergebung – Listen, Remembrance & a Cleanup”. These took place during the last 10 days of the exhibition, a time frame that was chosen intentionally: it is the period in the Jewish year when forgiveness (Selichot) is traditionally practiced. The main action centered on the censorship of “People’s Justice” (2012), the controversial mural by the Indonesian collective Taring Padi, which was removed from the exhibition because it featured, among other things, two antisemitic caricatures of Jews. Together with Hesto A. Nugroho, one of the members of the collective, Briller created a cleansing and purification ceremony: together they sketched the frame of the censored mural in the place from which it was removed, Hestu prayed the liturgical poem “Lord of Forgiveness” and lit an incense fire that was scattered in the nearby square.

His most recent action in Berlin began in June 2024, in response to the carnage and misery that have consumed Israel and Palestine since October 7, 2023, and the ongoing war in Gaza. Briller set up “A Little Peace Stand“ at the Turkish market on Maybachufer in Neukölln, not far from his studio. The colorful stand is designed to look like a mobile artist’s studio, with a printing press, ironing stand and open suitcase. Briller offers different sizes of patches, shirts, and prints he created, for sale at friendly prices. Using the “Star Jedi” font from the popular Star Wars movie, he prints various peace and anti-war messages and quotes on them: Stop Wars; Make Love; Do good. There is no try and No Nation but Imagination. The unexpected peace “products” on display often provoke questions from the market’s passers-by, and sometimes even lead to unexpected and surprising dialogues. One of the patches is given away for free by the artist: a QR printed on the patch leads to website of Clean Shelter, an NGO initiated by Seba Abu-Daqa, a Palestinian living in Munich and Tom Kellner, an Israeli living in Berlin, that provides sanitation in camps for displaced persons in Gaza.

Situated between art and craft, punk rock and science fiction, humor and tragedy, pacifism and irony, Briller’s little peace stand, a project still in the making, can be seen as a statement of radical hope in dark and polarizing times, a sincere proposal for the creation of socio-political public space for reflection, imagination, debate, invention and potential civil action. The stand will be exhibited together with other works by the artist at the KulturKirche nikodemus in Berlin on 17 November 2024.