Family

2013, Installation, projector, project screens, Steingießerei, Plochingen, Germany

The artist is interested in the perception of his own role, as well as that of other family members, as an identify-forming element. A wall of several projection areas is variously distributed throughout the room. One screen is higher than the next, another a little further back than the one before. The result is an asymmetrical structure. A single-channel video is projected onto the screen installation. The projection seems slightly wiggly and is projected both onto the screens and the space behind them. The images are not immediately clear. A humble house and the area surrounding it are shown. The beholder becomes the protagonist and feels his or her way, like a documentary filmmaker. Orientation is not easy because every new step opens up a new lived space – tiles on the wall, this must have been the bathroom. Elsewhere, wallpaper is peeling off. Now and then, we see nondescript junk, objects of a past era. The lavatory is in the garden shed, the garden itself consists of shrubs covered in trash and rubbish. From there, a few steps up, we see over a corrugated sheet roof. It is not possible to see far, because the next buildings are very close. They are high-rises in an environment that seems inhospitable; next to them, the filmed house seems like a hut from a favela. The image changes quickly, and a new visual structure is seen. It is a kind of family film: a woman and children outside, the children seen from the back, the woman as a half-profile. They harvest chestnuts in an idyll: a large meadow, framed by lush green trees and shrubs, appears in the background. The sun shines, it’s summer. We hear men’s voices from the off. The atmosphere seems relaxed. Both scenes – the exploration of the house as well as the chestnut harvest – render personal childhood memories of the artist. The pictures of the house, however, in terms of content stand in contrast to the chestnut harvest. The house as a site of memories and identity is explored. It is a document of a past era, the artist’s past. The chestnut harvest on the other hand shows a contemporary portrait of the artist’s family. It is a kind of document of the present. The screen installation divides the projection like a jigsaw puzzle: the screens are distributed unevenly through the exhibition space. But they all face in the same direc- tion, which turns the installation into an expansive sculpture. The screens become figurative objects, each carrying part of the projection, making it visible. They seem like personifications of the family members shown. Each figureplays his or her own role in keeping the group together. But each part also opens up space for a picture applied from outside.

Video