Ján Mancuška, ‘800 Ways to Describe a Chair’ (2004)
Multiple gunshots are taken at a chair sitting against a wall. After the wall has been marked, the chair is removed, leaving its silhouette behind.
Tag Archives: action
Sophie Giraux
Sophie Giraux, ‘Hat’s gemacht’
(Transl.: ‘EVERYONE SAID IT’S NOT POSSIBLE. THEN SOMEONE CAME, HE DIDN’T KNOW THAT AND HE DID IT’)
Olaf Nicolai
Olaf Nicolai, ‘The Blondes’ (2003)
The photographs were taken during the month that Olaf Nicolai ran a beauty parlor in the center of Tilburg in the Netherlands. He offered to bleach visitors’ hair free of charge, in exchange for the permission to use images of them in his work.
Danh Vo
The on-going project “Vo Rocasco Rasmussen” that began in 2003, was one of Danh Võ’s first forays in the systematic subversion of hegemonic cultural structures. Legally marrying and adopting the names of one close friend after another, this on-going work could be seen as a tribute to loyalty and love, but his subsequent accumulation of names over time calls into question the role a name plays in our understanding of identity. His passport, for example, does not read the same as his bank-card, and the name on his driver’s license is different from his door bell.
Nasan Tur
Nasan Tur, ‘Passport’ (2000)
Applying for a German passport, Nasan Tur let his mustache grow over several months, fitting the cliche of the Turk in Germany.
This small alteration in his appearance led to a complete change in perception of and reaction to him from the outside world in his daily life. In the circles in which he normally moved he was suddenly no longer welcome, and from a female point of view unsexy, whereas he was greeted with “Salem Aleykum” when walking past Turkish cafés and reaped enthusiastic compliments from aunts and uncles.
Gregor Schneider
Gregor Schneider, ‘Die Familie Schneider’ (2004)
Die Familie Schneider took place in neighbouring, identical houses – 14 and 16 Walden Street, London. The houses were open by appointment only and visitors – always two at a time – collected the front door keys from a small office on the same street. One visitor entered 14 Walden Street alone, whilst the other entered the neighbouring house.
In each was an identical woman, perpetually washing the same dishes; in each was a child, or a child-like person – wrapped placidly within a plastic bag; and in each was a man in a shower, engaged in a stark and lonely act of masturbation. After a period of ten minutes, the visitors emerged, exchanged keys and entered the second house.
At no time was there ever more than one visitor in each house.
Janek Schaefer
‘Recorded Delivery’, by Janek Schaefer (1995)
A sound activated tape recorder travels overnight through the UK Post Office. The dictaphone automatically edits the 15 hour journey down to a 72min recording, capturing only the significant sounds right up until the parcel is signed for at the end, where it is to be exhibited in a self storage building.
