Larissa Fassler

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Kotti, 2008
Archival C-Print
160 x 157 cm
Edition of 5 + 2AP

Kotti, 2008
deatil

Warschauer Straße, 2008
Archival C-Print
181 x 111 cm
Edition of 5 + 2AP

Warschauer Straße, 2008
detail

Kotti, 2008
Materials: grey cardboard and glue
Approximate scale: 1 footstep = 1 cm cardboard
Dimensions: 3m x 3m x 1.35m (H)

Kotti is a model-like representation of the publicly accessible areas of the mega housing estate - the Zentrum Kreuzberg (ZK) and its surroundings. Rather than constructing a model based on the positive masses of the buildings, I have measured and built the negative volumes - in the tunnels and between façades, following the surfaces of sidewalks and plazas, and leaving the rest as empty space.

Kotti, 2008
Materials: grey cardboard and glue
Approximate scale: 1 footstep = 1 cm cardboard
Dimensions: 3m x 3m x 1.35m (H)

Kotti, 2008
Detail

Alexanderplatz, built object, 2006
Materials: grey cardboard, scotch tape, pencil, bricks
Approximate scale: 1 footstep = 1.5cm of cardboard
Dimensions: 7.4m (L), 4.6m (W), 50cm (H)

The work “Alexanderplatz” is a second model-like replica of a pedestrian underground system. It makes visible the various abstract spaces we don’t see, those that leave virtually no mark on the city’s surface. Here, space is excavated: the complex carved-out corridors of the pedestrian tunnels become the ‘positive’ of hidden space.

The miniaturized scale and reconstruction of this heavily trafficked public space is based on a subjective measuring system. Using finger lengths and counting footsteps, I walked this network myself and gauged the internal dimensions and volumes of its platforms, halls, passageways, stairwells and elevator shafts. Technically inexact, this reconstruction can be characterized as a layman’s raw understanding of the spaces that contain the quotidian commuter.

Alexanderplatz, 2006
working drawing

Alexanderplatz, 2006
detail

Alexanderplatz, 2006
detail of an entrance

Hallesches Tor, built object with sound, 2005
Materials: wood, metal, digital clocks and sound
Approximate scale: 1 footstep = 3cm of wood
Dimensions: 200cm (L), 110cm (W), 60cm (H)

Hallesches Tor is a model-like replica of a Berlin pedestrian underground tunnel linking platforms of the subway network. Here the transient space of an underground tunnel and its human traffic is transformed into a sculptural object. Space is flipped inside out - the visible hidden, the usually invisible exposed. Attached to both ends of the tunnel are working reproductions of the digital countdown clocks that announce arriving and departing trains. From small speakers placed inside the tunnel the continuous music of the street musicians who play there, as well as the rushing footsteps of commuters, can be heard.

Teen Couples installation - parts I, II & III
2003, 2005, 2007

Three sets of 8 photographs (30 x 38cm)
and 1 video each (length varying form 3.51 to 4.50min).

In 2003 I asked a group of fourteen-year-olds, 4 girls and 2 boys, to pose for me in ways they believed 'a couple looks'. Cool and confident on the one hand, blushing and insecure on the other, these young teens dealt with role-play and how people view, construct and present themselves, only to have these delicate constructions betrayed by body language and emotion.

Subsequently, first in 2005 and again in 2007, I asked the original participants to pose once more as they believed 'a couple looks'. But in the years following the 2003 shoot some difficult relationship issues had developed between the individuals in this first group and they did not wish any close contact with one another. In fact they were not all even willing to be in the same room together.

Therefore the ensuing two series, Teen Couples II and Teen Couples III, focus on a few of the original participants in relationship with new friends presenting different forms of confidence and insecurity, self-presentation and sexual awareness.

Teen Couples I, 2003
Age 14

Teen Couples II, 2005
Age 16

Teen Couples III, 2007
Age 18

Teen Couples I, 2003
video still

Teen Couples II, 2005
video still

Award Ceremony of the Self-Acclaimed, 2001
Performance-based photography with sound component
Seated portraits (17" X 12") & Trophy image (17" X 9.5")

Twenty-one people were asked to imagine an award they wanted to receive. An appropriate trophy was then chosen and a plaque engraved with his/her name, date, and title of the award.

Award Ceremony for the Self-Acclaimed.
Caspar Groiseau, Award for Super Homework, Berlin 2001

The Wolfgang Schmidt Party, 2000
Public Performance/Event
Collaboration with Barbara Prokop

For this event we hosted a party for the most ‘common’ German man. Based on the name that occurs most often in the Berlin phone book, Wolfgang Schmidt was chosen as it occurs 257 times.

Seven individuals, each of whom answer to the name of Wolfgang Schmidt, responded to the invitation to attend this party in their honour.

The Wolfgang Schmidt Party, 2000
Public Performance/Event
Collaboration with Barbara Prokop

No Contact Made: The Flower Project, 2000
Performance-based photography - 36 photos (20 X 30cm)

No Contact Made: The Flower Project is a series of images of an on-going daily performance of a random and anonymous delivery of flowers done in Berlin. The repetitive action/performance included leaving a bouquet of flowers and a card with the recipient’s name on a doorstep. A photograph was then taken. This daily performance continued for two months amounting to thirty-six deliveries and photographs.

Possibly pleasant, possibly threatening - this random act of kindness was intended to cause a small disruption in people's day-to-day lives.

No Contact Made: The Flower Project, 2000
detail

Larissa Fassler

1975 born in Vancouver, Canada

Lives in Berlin, Germany

Education

2009 Goldrausch Küstlerinnenprojekt art IT, Berlin
2003 MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, London
1999 BFA Sculpture, Concordia University, Montreal.
1996 Studio Arts Diploma, Capilano College, Vancouver

Solo Exhibitions

2006
“People in Art/People as Art”, Truck, Calgary, Canada.
2005
“Teen Couples”, Articule, Montreal, Canada.
2002
“Doppelgangers”, YYZ Artists' Outlet, Toronto, Canada.
“Docudrama Series: Offerings”, Westernfront, Vancouver, Canada.
“A Dinner Party for Jane Doe” (with Barbara Prokop), SAW Gallery, Ottawa, Canada.
2001
“Application for a Medal”, S.O.X. 36, Berlin, Germnay.
“No Contact Made: The Flower Project, Resource Centre for the Arts, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
2000
"Art may imitate life, but life imitates T.V." (with Barbara Prokop), Access Artist-run Centre, Vancouver, Canada.
“By any means”, La Centrale, Montreal, Canada.

Group Exhibitions

2009
Goldrausch Küstlerinnenprojekt art IT, Berlin
"And Then There Were None", InterAccess, Toronto
"Selected Artists", Kulturverwaltung des Berliner Senats. Scholarship Exhibition, NGBK, Berlin
2008
"Le Chamois de Messidor", Program, Berlin
"Video Visions", Edith-Ruß-Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg, Germany
"Everybody Knows This is Nowhere", Galerie Wendt + Friedmann, Berlin
"Urban Jealousy - 1st International Roaming Biennial of Tehran", traveling exhibition, Istanbul, Berlin, Belgrade
"World One Minutes", traveling exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing; deBuren, Brussels; Gulbenkian museum, Lisbon; Museu de Art, Sao Paolo and the Townhouse Gallery, Cairo

2007
"WALK! – Spazierengehen als Kunstform", curators Stéphane Bauer and Christine Heidemann, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
"The Sexual Landscape Recast", Gallery 44, Toronto, Canada
"Squirm", Open Space, Victoria, Canada.
"Graphzines et autres publications d’artistes", Bibliothèque et Archives nationals du Québec, Montreal, Canada
2006
“Super 6”, ABEL - Neue Kunst, Berlin, Germany.
“The Momental”, Sparwasser HQ, Berlin, Germany.
“pedestrian”, WestGermany, Berlin, Germany.
2005
“Take My Hand”, Nina Menocal Gallery, Mexico City.
“Take My Hand”, ThreeWalls Gallery, Chicago, USA.
2004
"21. Kasseler Dokumentarfilm- & Videofest", Kassel.
“TAPE291”, 291 Gallery, London, UK.
“Out and About”, sis boom bah Gallery, Toronto Canada
2003
“ev+a 2003”, Limerick City Gallery of Art, curated by Virginia Pérez-Ratton, Limerick, Ireland.
“The Bigger Picture: Portraits from Ottawa”, The Ottawa Art Gallery, curated by Karen Love, Ottawa, Canada.
“Out and About”, Century Gallery, London, UK.
“Bootleg”, Spitalfields Market, curated by Catharine Patha, Sarah Grainger-Jones, Pablo LaFuente, Craig Burnett, Pernilla Holmes and Tom Morton, London, UK.
“de•een•minuten - the•one•minutes”, Sandberg Institute, Video Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Contact

Lausitzerstr. 45
10999 Berlin
Germany
Phone: 49 30 28879935
Email: larissa@paperaeroplane.com