Draft (EDEN) - Zurich, Switzerland, 2020
Draft (EDEN) is a picture book of a model (scale of 1:50) of an exhibition hall of Kunsthalle Zurich at Löwenbräuareal. The work or the concept Draft (EDEN) has been realised on the occasion of the show Make your own exhibition.
The documentation shows various views and possibilities of the different stages in the course of the work. The Draft (EDEN) included the entire space of the hall. Some elements have found their exact place from the beginning, whereas I have moved other objects from spot to spot or have even removed them. The work is not finished and it could take place in a changed formation at another place.
- Garden EDEN, (Gan Edenin Hebrew, = on the edge of the celestial steppe) or paradise (greek, = enclosed area) is the narrative of creation or the act of making.
- An exhibition hall is a place where ideas and imagination can unfold and be realised.
The exhibition space and Eden are therefore both places of creativity.
In my work as an artist I often refer to the context of the specific site of where the work is going to take place. In respect of the Kunsthalle it is the „white cube“ which forms the context. It could be interpreted as pure void. Eden as well is pure and void. It is fictitious and placeless.
My concept of Draft (EDEN) is not meant to be carried out, although I planned it to be technically realisable. The non-realisation could be understood as negation of Eden.
In fact the concept represents a counter-draft of Eden. It shows the appropriation of the world by humans (us) in order to try to inventorise and organise the objects of the world. The chalk drawings on the blackboards Flower?, Tree?, the photograph of a pond, but also the pictures which my grandfather took on his journeys through South America, question the realness of the world all from their own perspective.
The floor-to-ceiling enlarged A4-page from the SILVA-anthology book Arabiais a reference to the antiquated western hegemonic perception of and dominance over non-western countries and continents.It also hints to our present time and the future, which is referred to as anthropocene: the term stands for a new geological age, defined by the irreparable interventions and changes in nature and environment made by humans.
The simple way of living of grapevine snails stands in contrast to this dark prospect. To me they seem to live a life in real utopia. The hermaphrodites live in their yellow tub a self-sufficient life and have left the binary thinking behind.
Except the photograph of the pond, all image/material are relatedto my childhood memories: the not quite black colour of the blackboard, the then popular anthologies of the SILVA-books (they filled several shelves and as intended, – shaped my first view on what the world might look like), the slides by my grandfather (who pasted the collected images in the SILVA-books) and the yellow tub, in which I bathed.
Media:
- Booklet (16 pages, 21cm x 15cm, softcover, thread binding, paper: munken polar smooth, 170gr, digital print)
Other material:
- 8 digitised slides from the journeys of my grandfather in the sixties of the last century, possible display: ligth boxes, A4 size
- Photograph (Teufelssee), 50cm x 75cm, fine art premium, inkjet
- Architecture cardboard, blackboard colour, SILVA-books and various other material
- Grapevine snails, plastic tub, soil, plants