Museum of Broken Relationship

Museum of Broken Relationships opens

Kate Connolly in Berlin
Monday October 29, 2007
The Guardian

Cutting the arms off his designer suits, putting her prized wine collection out on the street for passers-by, or burning the collection of love letters are just some of the ways in which jilted lovers are known to have exacted revenge at the end of relationships.
But now there is another outlet for their painful experiences - The Museum of Broken Relationships.

A temporary space in Tacheles, a 1930s department store-turned-artists' squat in former East Berlin, has become a donor centre for mementos of break-ups.

The public has been invited to drop off objects left over after flings, partnerships and marriages. The response has been overwhelming.
"The pain caused by a break-up often produces a strong creative drive," said Olinka Vistica, a Zagreb artist who had the idea for the exhibition after splitting up with fellow artist and joint curator, Drazen Grubisic. "Some people turn to writing who had never written before and it's this emotional experience that makes it possible," she told Der Tagesspiegel.

The cathartic objets trouvés include an axe used by one woman to break up her ex-girlfriend's furniture, plus the broken furniture. Alongside the engagement rings and love letters there is a wedding dress, gall stones, a Vespa, a cuddly tiger, a fax and a pair of inline skates.

There is even a wooden leg from a Balkan war veteran who fell in love with a nurse in a field hospital. "The prosthetic had a longer life-span than the relationship," the donor has written next to the exhibit.

Susanne Schickl, 36, who donated the wedding dress she wore when she married a Japanese man in 1994, said: "I liked the idea that I could give something away that awakened painful memories for me."