Claire Healy & Sean Cordero
12 - 27 May 2006
Claire Healy & Sean Cordero
Flatpack
Studio 2
May 12th – May 28th 2006
The character of Claire Healy’s and Sean Cordeiro’s installations is irritatingly methodical. Their meticulous deconstructions mean that they almost resemble art-economical experiments in a laboratory, so contravening the dogma that fine art cannot be arbitrarily reproduced. For example, Healy and Cordeiro had already devised the original pattern for their joint project in 2003, when they dismantled a wooden house from a Sydney suburb into equal-sized pieces and piled these up until they reached the ceiling of the exhibition room.
Their material - a demolished house - thus experienced a rapid rise in value. The artistic act of destruction made the dilapidated house into an artefact; only after its destruction could it be accredited with the autonomy suitable for the art business.
The Berlin installation "flatpack" transfers this procedure to a more mobile home. From a tranquil suburb inhabited by the middle classes, west of the Havel, they transported a recently occupied caravan into Studio 2 of the Künstlerhaus. After the caravan had been dismantled into pieces, all exactly the same size, they delivered it door to door, neatly wrapped in transport film and laid on palettes. The vehicle, which was built in the 60s, is a symbol of the German dream of a mobile living-room idyll; here it is transposed into the cool world of globalised packaging and container norms. Even more importantly, an aspect of the mobile “heimat” ideal is transformed into a work of art, employing sober automatism.
Flatpack
Studio 2
May 12th – May 28th 2006
The character of Claire Healy’s and Sean Cordeiro’s installations is irritatingly methodical. Their meticulous deconstructions mean that they almost resemble art-economical experiments in a laboratory, so contravening the dogma that fine art cannot be arbitrarily reproduced. For example, Healy and Cordeiro had already devised the original pattern for their joint project in 2003, when they dismantled a wooden house from a Sydney suburb into equal-sized pieces and piled these up until they reached the ceiling of the exhibition room.
Their material - a demolished house - thus experienced a rapid rise in value. The artistic act of destruction made the dilapidated house into an artefact; only after its destruction could it be accredited with the autonomy suitable for the art business.
The Berlin installation "flatpack" transfers this procedure to a more mobile home. From a tranquil suburb inhabited by the middle classes, west of the Havel, they transported a recently occupied caravan into Studio 2 of the Künstlerhaus. After the caravan had been dismantled into pieces, all exactly the same size, they delivered it door to door, neatly wrapped in transport film and laid on palettes. The vehicle, which was built in the 60s, is a symbol of the German dream of a mobile living-room idyll; here it is transposed into the cool world of globalised packaging and container norms. Even more importantly, an aspect of the mobile “heimat” ideal is transformed into a work of art, employing sober automatism.