1992soup
das haar in der suppe (the hair in the soup), 1992
Video installation, Kunsthalle Basel. A collaborative work with Clara Saner. Curated by Thomas Kellein.
Entrance:
a mural writing in yellow and green IM ÜBRIGEN DANKEN WIR AUCH ALLEN ANDEREN by the way, we also thank everybody else, 3 TVs mounted on the wall. A contract with the director of the Kunsthalle regulates the dismantling of the show.
video: enough for everybody, 30’, sharing food with foot
video: Kathy A. and John D., 30’, reading Kathy Acker texts
video: about a story, 30’, eating soup with no mouth
Installation in the main room:
a wooden table (100 x 1000 cm) with photo puzzles (photos of hairs), an emergency tent.
on the wall:
19 portrait photographs with rearview mirrors.
inside the emergency tent:
a wig on a pedestal, a lamp and the beginning (or the end) of the table, which is ten meters long.
“Since 1992, Chiarenza & Hauser have from time to time felt the need to acknowledge the viewers of their work and also thank everyone else. At the same time they have developed a method of “personal settings”. In site-specific questionnaires or interviews, they poll private and public interests that have crystallized around art. Above all, they trace the taboos that public statements empower (see, for example, the omissions in the accompanying publication). Next to the photos of representatives of the Art Society and people from Basel’s public life, the artists mount car rearview mirrors, so that the portraits decompose into several perspectives. A tent stands at the center of the installation, into which Clara Saner’s table juts. On them the artist spreads photographs of the backs of heads depicting the hair, punched into puzzle pieces and joined into table-mat shapes. Inside the tent, the theme of losing face is publicly celebrated. The occasion is a debate on the resignation of Thomas Kellein, the director of the Kunsthalle.“
(Excerpt from a text by Susann Wintsch, in: we save what you give, monograph on RELAX, A project by edition fink through Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, 2006)
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