A RENOVATING SITUATION
2013
In the exhibition space, the artist built improvised stairs out of a table, chair and plastic boxes in front of a wall. She climbed onto the towerlike construction and washed the wall three times with a sponge and water from as close to the top as she could reach down to the floor. For that purpose she rearranged the stairs several times.
Between the three washings she sat on the table and read a text twice.
Performance | Wall of the space (340 x 250 cm), one folding table, two folding chairs, four grey standard plastic boxes, bucket of water, sponge; text | Duration approx. 45 min
View: NY Art Book Fair, Gallery E, MoMA PS1, Queens, New York, 22.9.2013
(Excerpts from the read text:)
0th dimension. I stand.
1st dimension. The distance from myself to the wall.
2nd dimension. The expansion of the floor space.
3rd dimension. The opening of the volume in the room.
4th dimension. The traces of the past.
The falling darkness.
The altering visibility.
5th dimension. The scanning, roaming, interweaving, filling of the void
by thoughts.
The superiority of the void.
The hush.
_
Upright
An axis of reference
0th dimension. I stand.
Vertically, cutting space
Standing is no dimension
but a condition
The first word
_
I am standing
I am one
And the other is standing
at distance
_
A fold
A cut in even space
A decision
[…]
Each page can be either lying or turning.
_
3rd dimension. The opening of the volume in the room.
_
Trying to build a house which stands
where everything fits into
and which indicates the weather
A screen for the light and wind
A container, a screen, a void
_
To build walls which break
and locate space
A cutting line, an edge, a start
Walls marking a fold
A line of intervention, a line of difference
Folding the ground
Resisting infinity and consistency of space
_
A house which resists and changes
A house breaking the wind
opposing the dust
_
A solid to resist the wind of decay
temporarily
_
However, the walls are built of dust
[…]
Arrange the fragments
one next to the other
_
Even though
they do not form a word
they still catch the dust
and cast a shadow
_
Permanently shifting the dust
to maintain the possibility of distinguishing
_
Permanently shifting the dust
Between the dust just piled
appears a blank
_
Where a decrepit building is dismantled
appears a blank
A missing, the volume of a missing
limited by walls
Where a building is knocked down
a space opens up
_
How long will you maintain the opening
[…]
After standing upright,
at distance to another physical presence,
facing a wall,
after the floor expanding from you,
and the space unfolding around you,
after the passing time falling down on the visible, hiding and revealing it,
burning it and bleaching it,
after the invention of the possible
There is moving in space,
there is stepping in,
realizing space again and again through acting in it,
through breaking and shifting and relating.
Moments of disruption,
of distinction.
A place inhabited by movement.
The presence or absence or expectation of action.
A stage in times between,
a preparing and renovating situation
_
Opening and closing
