Unknown Guests
YEAR: 1993
CATALOGUE NUMBER: 74
PROVENANCE
Collection of the artist
EXHIBITIONS
Linz, Offenes Kulturhaus des Landes Oberösterreich
Das Fremde. Der Gast, 17 Sep 1993 — 24 Oct 1993 (Organisation: in collaboration with the Festival der Regionen)
DESCRIPTION
The installation consists of 237 metal (zinc) plates on which some sort of depiction can be seen. Each plate is 18 x 27 cm. Altogether these plates form two stories (in pictures) about two rather strange characters who were (or perhaps it is better to say, who felt that they were) not really inhabitants of our world, that they were rather outsiders and guests on our planet. One of them lived in the closet behind a closed door. Whenever someone tried to open the door, he would disappear into thin air, dissipate into the sky. The other one always hovered above the earth. He belonged to a special society of ‘fliers’ who never descend to earth and live in the sky.
But the installation has yet another ‘layer.’ These ‘stories,’ the life of these characters, remain unknown, unrecognized because these stories have not been published (and no one knows how they would look on paper) and they remain to this day only a ‘form’ about which we can only guess.
CONCEPT OF THE INSTALLATION
The exhibition in which this installation was displayed was dedicated to the theme of curiosities and was supposed to correspond to something strange, incomprehensible, even mysterious. That’s why a large but low wooden crate with lots of compartments was filled half-way with earth in which metal boards were inserted on which drawings were easily seen.
The overall appearance of the crate resembled archaeological crates or crates from some long-forgotten depository with mysterious rarities in them that still are yet to be discovered and deciphered. It’s as though these are objects before they have been researched. All of this is covered with plexiglass behind which it is not so easy to see anything. Furthermore, this is all lying on the floor and you have to bend over to see it. No one really wants to do this, so it is better to be left just with a general impression: there is something there down below, even if it is intriguing, in essence, it isn’t really my business.
Literature
