I've just got back from my trip to Switzerland where for the past week I have been setting work up for the group show: 'Oh, Plastiksack!' at the Gewerbemuseum in Winterthur.
The town itself hosts several important museums making it a very appealing cultural attraction, also blessed by a beautiful and friendly pedestrian historical centre, busy with street cafes, bars and a keen interactive community.
During my stay I was booked into Ulrike's beautiful B&B: 'Zum Steinadler', located on Marktgasse 9.
It has been a truly unique and amazing experience, so eventful and emotionally intense. All along I was completely immersed in my element surrounded all over by plastic bags. I have met so many wonderful people that have made it hard to re-adjust to my daily routine. The whole museum crew was unbelievably kind and helpful to begin with the technicians: Serge, Michael, Beat, Laurel. Then the research team: Mario, Luzi, the administrative force, chief secretary Sarah, Trix, young Sarah, who provided me with fruits, the director Marcus and of course the most lovely curator: Susanna Kumschick who came up with such great show. The idea was based on Ida Marie Corell publication on plastic bags.
Susanna and Ida have in fact co-curated the whole exhibition and a great success: 230 people came for the opening of the show and 200 more visited on the following day!
The artist who I had the privilege to spend time with and to enamor with where: Nils Voelker (http://www.nilsvoelker.com/), Ida Marie Corell (http://alltagsobjektplastiktuete.wordpress.com/), Luzinterruptus team (http://www.luzinterruptus.com),
Lisa Tiemann (http://www.lisatiemann.de/landing.html),
Marie Claire Baldenweg (http://www.baldenweg.com)
and of course posh Dodi! (http://dodireifenberg.com)
All work with plastic bags like me, all in different marvellous ways! Finally I was in good company!
On Ida's blog you will be able to find pics of an outrageously amazing opening that started at 4pm and ended at 4am of the next morning. The first 6 hours inside the museum, started with a formal introduction by Marcus and Susanna, followed by aperitif and artists performing through out the museum, my absolutely favourite was Ida's music performance, I was all goose bumps and tears! Then came the delicious dinner prepared by our chef Momo who has been spoiling us with dinner treats for the whole week. Nicki the DJ accompanied the soiree until we went out to watch light and street performers Luzinterruptus. At midnight the big gathering moved from the main town square, where the museum had extended into, to our local cafe: 'Capuccino' to engage with more conversations and even more drinks!
The whole experience felt more like a wedding ceremony rather than a museum opening. A relax and familiar atmosphere was the thread that interwove people, art, places, the locals to the foreigners, everybody participating and celebrating a town festival: to me an ideal and idyllic bubble.
So here are links to Ida's blog for pics of the vernissage:
The link to Ida Marie Corell's book on Plastic bags:
The link to the museum:
Link to press aritcle:
My work consists in a six parts outdoor installation that travels through different parts of the museum.
It is an interactive and living installation that is supposed to breed on its surrounding inputs and is sensitive if not vulnerable to the influence of all the elements around it.
The show will be up until October. During that time my work will gradually change, morphing into new shapes and forms dictated by nature and will eventually decay if not disintegrate. Unfortunately once again I won't be able to document that process but hopefully the viewers will appreciate the transformative nature of my work and capture the aesthetics that come with decay and destruction: Nature will reclaim and mould my artwork and transform it in to its very own creation/creature.
To start with the title of my artwork:
NOR A WEE OR A PARASITE
NON NATIVE, INVASIVE, NOXIOUS, UNWANTED AND INDISPENSABLE
My statement:
NOR A WEED OR A PARASITE
Non-native,
invasive, noxious, unwanted and indispensable
Yet
in need of a tending gardener - yet another link to the chain
Grains
and chains, wedded to the biological (st)ring
Chains,
how many more will I raise on my evolutionary flight to freedom?
Chains,
how far will I reach to secure the world for myself - from myself?
Chains,
while I am waiting for my bags to cease - my work to vanish
Chains,
dissolve into the other new
Chains,
how many will I raze to mark my latest boundary - test my limit?
Chains,
while I am waiting to gain control I am waiting, waiting for nature to pull me
off –
off
my last (st)ring and free me from the power of my nature
For
I could only learn through my mistake - play with my genetic gift
“ORDER!”
Has
something gone wrong?
Worry
not, for it is all nature intended in the end.
Now I am posting some picks, so let the journey begin, Bonne Voyage!
Entering the Grand Cafe du Musee, looking up ..............and looking down into the Cafe
............From the Cafe passing through the tunnel
At one glance in the backyard
...........Coming up the stairs to enter the backyard.........
..........and from the back of the courtyard up
.......................................................................................Passing through the maze of chains
....................Entering the terrace................
.........On the terrace..............
.........................Looking from the courtyard upwards the terrace again.
............and that's all for now, the end or the beginning of another cycle!...................................
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