Installation and Performance at the Krefeld Art Museum, from May 24 to October 6, 2024
Curated by Dr. Magdalena Holzhey and Dr. Sylvia Martin
Materials: Textiles, 2 Studio Lamps Prolycht Orion 300 FS, Aputure LS C300D II Kit Bowens, 3 Aputure Light Dome II, 3 Tripods, Whistle, Magazine (Art Nouveau from 1898), Glasses, Cocktail Shaker, Sponsored Bar with Bar Furnishings, Fan, Cash Register, Socialist Dining Table with 2 Chairs, Samovar, Small Pot, Vase, Carousel Toaster, 6 Mannequins, 8 Book Editions, Suitcase, Home Organ, Cupboard, 2 Chests of Drawers, Ceramic Pot, A Table with 4 Chairs, Wall Clock, Sugar Bowl, 10 Handmade Postcards, Space Heater, Vat, Laundry Bucket, Washboard, Laundry Pounder, Japanese Woodblock Print, 6 Advertising Posters, Screen (Paravent)
Size: Variable
The work exists in multiple iterations. First presented in 2023 under the title dispersed non-existence, it was later reinstalled and expanded as Die Bar (the bar), with its structure and narrative adapting to each exhibition context.
The bar is not conceived as a place of exchange, but as a deliberately positioned structure in which expectations of sociability and intimacy become visible without being fulfilled. The exhibition negotiates a tension between exhibition situation and everyday-related infrastructure.
In the skylit hall of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld, a fully functional bar counter stands at the center of the installation, whose use eludes actual execution.
The promise of encounter associated with the bar remains suspended. Rather than functioning as a site of exchange, it operates as an aesthetically constructed model. Delicate consumption, conversation, and intimacy function as a surface beneath which a narrative layer is revealed, structured through the Diaries of bad deeds. The occasional activation by a bartender is part of this proposition and reinforces the ambivalence between function and staging.
Around the bar, mannequins are positioned that mark different figures. Their costumes and accompanying text pieces refer to individual narratives whose status between biographical reference and fiction deliberately remains unresolved. The texts operate with autofictional fragments and attributions, generating a field of tension between personal narration and the analytical consideration of so-called “bad” deeds.
The bar constructs a situation that appears familiar while simultaneously being strictly regulated. It makes visible how everyday life functions as a scenographic construction: every component—from the counter and the lighting to the figures—is part of an arrangement that transfers visitors into an artificial, almost dreamlike scenery.
Realized with the kind support of the Stiftung der Sparda-Bank West, Party.Rent Group, and the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf.
