1993goldfinger
goldfinger, 1993
Video installation in: The Swiss Paradigm, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg. Curated by Shirley Madill.
In order to escape a prescribed framework that is supposed to indoctrinate the guests in The Swiss Paradigm, Chiarenza & Hauser use the available factors. For the lecture announcing the exhibition, the two appear in stocking masks and communicate in mute gestures until the public asks questions that are over and above preconceived expectations.
They set the installation up at the entrance to the exhibition room in order to insert a “hinge” between an anonymous public room and an art room. They hang the built-in partitions with video stills, half-hidden behind office plants. At the center the video goldfinger, the thriller shows the fate of Chiarenza & Hauser. They have stolen two artworks, whose importance had been relayed to them in conversation. They are eventually caught and arrested. To conclude, they must plead with two politicians for advice, who - not initiated into the context - promise to do their best. In another video work projected at two places in the room, Chiarenza & Hauser present the economic, social and touristic on-site givens.
Installation: 6 massive partitions, 12 indoor plants, 12 lamps, 1 sofa from the off-space Plug-In in Winnipeg, 1 armchair from the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1 round table, 8 chairs from the staff canteen, 12 photographs, 1 gray carpet Ø 120 cm, 2 video projectors, 1 TV, 2 video players, 2 videos: goldfinger, the thriller, duration: 18’, goldfinger, the context tape, duration: 15’.
(Excerpt from 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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