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 The East German surveillance booth, one of thousands made in
the 1970s, was originally planted in the parking lot of the
state-run news agency ADN in Berlin.
Now it has traveled from Berlin to Los Angeles as an
installation by German artist Christof Zwiener, who has
organized several art exhibitions within the 2 meters (6.6 feet)
by 1 meter (3.3 feet) booth for a single guard that was
originally used to keep a close watch on news reporters.
"My idea was to show the transformation in Berlin but also the
transformation since the Wall fell," Zweiner said in an
interview on Monday at the guardhouse's newest temporary
location along Wilshire Boulevard, near a permanent installation
of remnants of the Berlin Wall.
The Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989, kicking off revolutions
against Communist rule throughout the Eastern Bloc that ended
the Cold War.
The guardhouse will move across the city with different
installations before finally reaching its resting place at the
Wende Museum, which is dedicated to East German and Cold War
artifacts in nearby Culver City.
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 Guardhouses were integral to East Germany's sophisticated
state surveillance, allowing spies to monitor peoples' comings
and goings.
The current exhibition "Key Delivery" by Berlin artist Sonya
Schoenberger hangs some 2,000 keys from an abandoned East German
police barracks inside the guardhouse.
"Key Delivery" reflects the "loss of power and loss of control"
of the East German state security apparatus following the fall of
the Berlin Wall, Zweiner said.
In the past year, around a dozen artists will have exhibited in the
guardhouse by the time it finds its permanent home at the Wende
Museum's sculpture garden in November for the 25th anniversary of
the Berlin Wall's collapse.
(Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Eric Kelsey, Editing by Piya
Sinha-Roy and Richard Chang)
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