Tribulation / Tabulation Room
300 x 800 x 800 cm
Installation, oil, acrylic and lacquer on canvas, plinth, typewriter, typed roll of canvas, laser prints on paper, loudspeakers, text, sound
Work.Master (contemporary art practices department), HEAD–Genève, CH
2019
Tabula Rasa
Tabula Rasa
300 x 600 x 900 cm
Installation, oil on canvas, mixed techniques on paper, collected furniture and objects from the former GDR period, typed inventory on paper, performance
6th International Summer Campus residency, Künstlerstadt Kalbe (Milde), DE
2018
A fictitious painter’s studio is created in a room in one of the old buildings in the small town of Kalbe (Saxony). Formerly used as an archive room during the German Democratic Republic, everything inside had remained intact, including the furniture.
At the beginning of the residency, the room was cleaned and repainted. Inhabitants of the town were invited to donate objects dating back to the German Democratic Republic period. Every day, old schoolteacher’s frames, coats of arms and postcards of the town, beer mugs, household items, identity cards and party membership cards, pioneer medals, newspapers and documents from the former Trabant car factory next door would arrive.
Four paintings are painted in the colour of the furnace built into the wall. Just like the room’s ceiling plaster is crumbling, each painting too has a defect: two horizontal or vertical support bars from the frame are missing, are not varnished, or are cut in half.
A painting by Gevorg Grigoryan, another resident, is hung above the furnace.
A map of the city and four mind maps that were made on spot are put under glass, in old mismatched frames.
An inventory of everything to be seen in the space is typed on a portable typewriter that is still in its original case.
During the public visit, a performance takes place, where a fictitious painter expresses his satisfaction at having returned to the studio he would have occupied more than thirty years ago, had he not have had to leave the country in a hurry to flee persecution because of his paintings. He goes around talking to himself in three languages, his words not really making any sense. He finally sits down at the desk and finishes typing up the inventory and reads it out loud, before leaving the room.
Kunst-Halle-an-der-Saale
Kunst-Halle-an-der-Saale
390 x 400 x 300 cm
Installation, wall painting, oil, acrylic and transparent varnish on jute canvas, collected and painted objects from the city of Halle, digital printed inventory on paper
Hermès5 group show (cur. Sophia Schama)
Malerei Klasse (Painting department), Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle (Saale), DE
2018
There is no Kunsthalle in Halle. The city’s coat of arms is red and white, with a crescent moon and a star, reminiscent of some flags of other countries. These colours and patterns are in part included in the installation.
In every administrative or artistic correspondence, it must be specified that it is Halle (an der Saale), i.e. “Halle-sur-la-Saale“, in French. A certain lack of the French-speaking world is therefore felt after some time.
Over the months, a large number of objects were accumulated. They were collected during aimless wanderings in the streets. A few books are from flea markets or historical museums. They often evoke the city’s East German industrialist past. Some objects are tools or drawings donated by other artists working in the building, such as the small charcoal sketch by Julius Walter Scholz framed at the bottom left of the project.
An inventory, in A6 format, can be consulted by the audience as a fake exhibition leaflet.
Here, the space that was used as a work place for six months transforms into a temporary exhibition area. Everything that was collected during that period is hung on a wall or placed on two stands and a table on the floor.
A Kunst-Halle-an-der-Saale exists for the duration of an exhibition.
Eingang
Eingang
250 x 700 x 350 cm
Installation, metallic wall paint, oil on canvas and wood, watercolor on cork, acrylic on paper, spray on cardboard, plexiglas, plaster and wood, collected and painted objects from the city of Geneva, typed inventory on paper
Open Doors
Work.Master(contemporary art practices department), HEAD–Genève, CH
2018
Fantasy workshop situated on the first floor of the Boulevard Helvétique 9 (Geneva, Switzerland).
A mural is painted with a mix of gold pigments in transparent acrylic. Two workshop tables are placed the foreground.
Among other objects, some plaster casts made from various containers and painted with a brush or aerosols are placed on it. Frames salvaged from the street or from the school are mounted on the walls. A few pieces of broken frames are put up above and around them. The entire art installation is designed for this portion of the wall that was imposed by the school requirements.
A large wooden door frame, painted in the two main colours is erected in front of it and allows you to enter this ephemeral space.
An inventory is made and typed up with a typewriter, but is not visible in the room.