Collection on Display: Christoph Schlingensief
22 Nov 2014 - 08 Feb 2015
Christoph Schlingensief
Kaprow City, 2006/2007
Various materials
350 x 1800 x 1500 cm
Stefan Altenburger Photography, Zurich © Nachlass Christoph Schlingensief
Kaprow City, 2006/2007
Various materials
350 x 1800 x 1500 cm
Stefan Altenburger Photography, Zurich © Nachlass Christoph Schlingensief
COLLECTION ON DISPLAY: CHRISTOPH SCHLINGENSIEF
22 November 2014 – 8 February 2015
Collection on Display presents selected works from the collection of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst.
The third part of the current cycle, which is about excess in terms of form and motif, presents the room-filling installation Kaprow City (2006/2007) by Christoph Schlingensief (1960–2010). Excess is a universal theme in art, a theme that is applied in terms of both motif and form in equal measure, in the sense of a postmodern work concept without boundaries. Schlingensief's work links in with these notions: by means of his excessive agglomerations of materials and unconventional narrations, he creates flowing transitions between art genres. The work 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959) by American artist Allan Kaprow (1927–2006) served Schlingensief as a basis for Kaprow City. The latter was originally conceived as a walk-through installation on a revolving stage at Volksbühne in Berlin. On the occasion of his largest solo exhibition during his lifetime, at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in 2007/2008, Schlingensief added to the work in the sense of a (re-)deconstruction and supplemented the setting with sequences from the 2007 film Fremdverstümmelung, as well as other films of his.
Christoph Schlingensief's artwork is like a foray through the arts. Schlingensief worked as a filmmaker, a political performance artist, a theater director, an opera director, an actor, a painter, and a columnist. In his oeuvre, he deconstructs and reconstructs complex and overlapping visual worlds that reject linearity and classical narration, and challenge the observers' reception habits. In the multimedia work-complex Kaprow City, originally produced as a walk-through installation on a revolving stage at Volksbühne in Berlin, a decisive element of transition from theater to visual art in Schlingensief's oeuvre manifests itself. The structure of the fragmented stage, which had various walk-through chambers in an outer ring, is a homage to Allan Kaprow. Kaprow's central concern was the transfer of theatrical and musical elements to visual art, so as to free it from its painterly contemplative stagnation. However, this was not to occur via artificial artistic activities, but instead via simple everyday acts, like the squeezing of an orange. The 1959 work 18 Happenings in 6 Parts is one of the most famous happenings by this artist, and its title represents his call for a new art genre. The concept of fragmentary seeing and experience was promoted by the fact that divisions of the space prevented the observer from seeing all the transpiring activities (happenings) simultaneously. For Kaprow City, Schlingensief resumed this splitting of the audience into various groups; like with Kaprow, the aspiration to see everything could not be fulfilled. Schlingensief also experimented with the incorporation of simple everyday activities, some of which were performed by people with disabilities. The actual play, with a fragmentary narrative, took place in the interior of the revolving stage, and the onlookers were able to see this from outside, as a live transmission. With Jenny Elvers in the main role, Schlingensief presented scenes from the life of Lady Diana. At its core, Kaprow City, like other works by this artist, addresses issues regarding the relationship between events and their mediality, the eye witness, and our conventions of seeing.
The reconstruction of the installation in a museum space brings about a change of function, which simultaneously becomes a deconstruction: in the exhibition space, Schlingensief creates a hermetically sealed ruin that can no longer be entered and, alongside its new sculptural function, serves as a projection screen once again. The chamber-like segments that the audience were able to enter in the original theater production have been converted into cinema rooms, where recordings from the Berlin Kaprow City production, the film Fremdverstümmelung (2007) and personal family films are interwoven to form a complex reference system. Fremdverstümmelung was part of Schlingensief's Bonn opera production Freax (2007), which he realized with disabled actors. The inclusion of disabled people, but also unemployed people or other socially marginalized groups, is another characteristic element of Schlingensief's working method: such protagonists become agents of criticism, due to their apparent lack of any societal function.
Viewing these film fragments is often made difficult by transparent sheets, which are applied in multiple layers. Schlingensief denies the onlooker a direct view and clear images; the image often only exists within the overlays, and in the double (and multiple) exposures. These aesthetic principles are already evident in his early films: on the basis of visual and/or acoustic overlays, which place excessive demands on the observer and aim to cause one's own capacity for absorbing images to implode, an alternative mode of observation opens up, enabling new montages and narrations. In a very particular way, the comprehensive irritation necessitates an active attitude and decisiveness on the part of the observer.
22 November 2014 – 8 February 2015
Collection on Display presents selected works from the collection of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst.
The third part of the current cycle, which is about excess in terms of form and motif, presents the room-filling installation Kaprow City (2006/2007) by Christoph Schlingensief (1960–2010). Excess is a universal theme in art, a theme that is applied in terms of both motif and form in equal measure, in the sense of a postmodern work concept without boundaries. Schlingensief's work links in with these notions: by means of his excessive agglomerations of materials and unconventional narrations, he creates flowing transitions between art genres. The work 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959) by American artist Allan Kaprow (1927–2006) served Schlingensief as a basis for Kaprow City. The latter was originally conceived as a walk-through installation on a revolving stage at Volksbühne in Berlin. On the occasion of his largest solo exhibition during his lifetime, at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in 2007/2008, Schlingensief added to the work in the sense of a (re-)deconstruction and supplemented the setting with sequences from the 2007 film Fremdverstümmelung, as well as other films of his.
Christoph Schlingensief's artwork is like a foray through the arts. Schlingensief worked as a filmmaker, a political performance artist, a theater director, an opera director, an actor, a painter, and a columnist. In his oeuvre, he deconstructs and reconstructs complex and overlapping visual worlds that reject linearity and classical narration, and challenge the observers' reception habits. In the multimedia work-complex Kaprow City, originally produced as a walk-through installation on a revolving stage at Volksbühne in Berlin, a decisive element of transition from theater to visual art in Schlingensief's oeuvre manifests itself. The structure of the fragmented stage, which had various walk-through chambers in an outer ring, is a homage to Allan Kaprow. Kaprow's central concern was the transfer of theatrical and musical elements to visual art, so as to free it from its painterly contemplative stagnation. However, this was not to occur via artificial artistic activities, but instead via simple everyday acts, like the squeezing of an orange. The 1959 work 18 Happenings in 6 Parts is one of the most famous happenings by this artist, and its title represents his call for a new art genre. The concept of fragmentary seeing and experience was promoted by the fact that divisions of the space prevented the observer from seeing all the transpiring activities (happenings) simultaneously. For Kaprow City, Schlingensief resumed this splitting of the audience into various groups; like with Kaprow, the aspiration to see everything could not be fulfilled. Schlingensief also experimented with the incorporation of simple everyday activities, some of which were performed by people with disabilities. The actual play, with a fragmentary narrative, took place in the interior of the revolving stage, and the onlookers were able to see this from outside, as a live transmission. With Jenny Elvers in the main role, Schlingensief presented scenes from the life of Lady Diana. At its core, Kaprow City, like other works by this artist, addresses issues regarding the relationship between events and their mediality, the eye witness, and our conventions of seeing.
The reconstruction of the installation in a museum space brings about a change of function, which simultaneously becomes a deconstruction: in the exhibition space, Schlingensief creates a hermetically sealed ruin that can no longer be entered and, alongside its new sculptural function, serves as a projection screen once again. The chamber-like segments that the audience were able to enter in the original theater production have been converted into cinema rooms, where recordings from the Berlin Kaprow City production, the film Fremdverstümmelung (2007) and personal family films are interwoven to form a complex reference system. Fremdverstümmelung was part of Schlingensief's Bonn opera production Freax (2007), which he realized with disabled actors. The inclusion of disabled people, but also unemployed people or other socially marginalized groups, is another characteristic element of Schlingensief's working method: such protagonists become agents of criticism, due to their apparent lack of any societal function.
Viewing these film fragments is often made difficult by transparent sheets, which are applied in multiple layers. Schlingensief denies the onlooker a direct view and clear images; the image often only exists within the overlays, and in the double (and multiple) exposures. These aesthetic principles are already evident in his early films: on the basis of visual and/or acoustic overlays, which place excessive demands on the observer and aim to cause one's own capacity for absorbing images to implode, an alternative mode of observation opens up, enabling new montages and narrations. In a very particular way, the comprehensive irritation necessitates an active attitude and decisiveness on the part of the observer.