A wall sculpture by Potsdam artist Werner Nerlich was rediscovered at ATB during clean-up work. The object is a cultural testimony to GDR history and has now been given a new place on the ATB campus. 

The sculpture, probably created in the 1960s, decorated the facade above the entrance to the Institute's main building for a long time. It was removed during the period of reunification.

In times of scientific and technological revolution, under socialism, works of art were supposed to convey political messages and illustrate utopias of progress. The artist Werner Nerlich also felt committed to building a 'new culture' at that time and supported the 'dream factory of socialism' with his works before he turned away from socialist realism in his artistic work in the 1970s.

For the Bornim Research Institute, Werner Nerlich has sculpted the heads of two people in profile, man and woman or male and female researcher, from flat metal strips against a circular metal relief. Their eyes look visionarily in the same direction: to the left. Symbols of an ear of grain and of the atomic model refer to advances in research and are possibly to be seen as a reference to the 'Green Revolution'. In the 1960s, record yields were achieved through achievements in agricultural research, new cultivation methods and high-yielding varieties. The star perched above the sculpture can be read as the 'guiding star of socialism'.

Werner Nerlich worked as a painter, graphic artist, technical school director and cultural official in Potsdam. Works of his architecture-related art have decorated and still decorate buildings in Potsdam. His best-known works include the figure of a bathing woman on the former swimming hall on the Brauhausberg (now Blu), the mural painted in 1966 for the dance foyer of the former Kulturhaus (now in the Potsdam Museum), the Olympia mural with dove of peace on the rowers' canteen in the Luftschiffhafen, the bell stele in Potsdam's Old Cemetery and the emblem of the city of Potsdam.

Werner Nerlich was born in Nowawes, now Babelsberg, in 1915. He studied art from Hans Orlowski and Max Kraus in Berlin, but was immediately drafted into the military after graduation. In 1943, in the cauldron of Stalingrad, Nerlich deserted to the Red Army and from July 1944 on worked on the front for the National Committee of Free Germany, where he designed posters and leaflets against Hitler's Germany, among other things. After the war, he became involved, nolens volens, in discussing and shaping the cultural policy of the GDR and also took on administrative tasks in Potsdam and at the state level. Together with his friend Otto Nagel, he initiated art events such as exhibitions in the Villa Kellermann or in the Potsdam Marstall. From 1973 onwards, Nerlich devoted himself exclusively to his art. Today, Nerlich is considered one of the most prominent graphic, poster and typographic designers of the GDR. He created drawings and watercolours, commercial graphics and architectural art. Werner Nerlich died in Potsdam on 15 September 1999.