Why artist Gregor Schneider is the master of German Angst | Arts | DW | 05.12.2016
Why artist Gregor Schneider is the master of German Angst
The works created by Gregor Schneider, winner of the Golden Lion in 2001, are eerily disturbing. They can now be experienced at an exhibition in Bonn called "Wall Before Wall."
Gregor Schneider's creepy art
Modern torture chambers
This aseptic linoleum corridor by German artist Gregor Schneider is designed in the style of the hallways of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The space, with its strong disinfectant smell, evokes unpleasant associations: Is anyone being tortured behind those fake doors?
Abandoned by God and the world
This street of a village in the Lower Rhine region appears deserted. In areas affected by brown coal mining, entire villages are emptied to be razed by giant diggers, creating ghost towns. The artist created a touching video with the surreal scenery in Garzweiler.
Schneider filmed these images in Kolkata (Calcutta), in the south of India. The video shows the construction of a temple; the streets are loud and busy. The artist reproduces this atmosphere in the Bonn Bundeskunsthalle museum, where the film is projected onto giant screens covering three walls.
The room collector
Gregor Schneider is a room collector. Sometimes he takes an existing structure down to rebuild it elsewhere. Other times he creates artificial spaces that trigger uncomfortable associations. This shower is one of the stations of the Bonn exhibition, a work entitled "Bathroom," from 2004.
A child's cell
A small pink mattress is the only piece of furniture in this windowless room with walls covered by linoleum. It looks like a children's cell in a secret prison - either Guantanamo, or perhaps the one Josef Fritzl built to hold his own daughter captive for 24 years? In any case, the space is disturbingly creepy.
Aesthetics of darkness
"The design principles of the artist are set in darkness," says Ulrich Loock, curator of the exhibition. Visitors also discover the rooms more clearly by going through the dark as well, such as through this tunnel leading to Schneider's children's room.
One room over, we find Gregor Schneider's "Alte Hausschlampe" lying on the floor. The conceptual artist's exhibition "Wall Before Wall" in Bonn can be seen through February 19, 2017.
Author: Stefan Dege (eg)
For the exhibition "Wall Before Wall" at the Bundeskunsthalle museum in Bonn, Gregor Schneider conceived 20 spaces, offering a retrospective of his works of the last 30 years.
It is dark in most of them. Darkness is one of the artist's guiding principles, says the curator of the exhibition, Ulrich Loock. Schneider rather sees his art as "a self-consuming production." One thing is clear: Theoretical discussions cannot convey what one feels experiencing the works of this artist first-hand.
"Dark Room" by Gregor Schneider
The entrance hall is filled with a video projection of a temple being built in Kolkata. It's vibrant and noisy, creating a shocking contrast with the following space: A steel door leads to an aseptic corridor with a series of fake doors, reproducing a hallway of Guantanamo Bay's top-secret high-security prison. It smells of disinfectant; it's screamingly silent.
Creepy imagery
The next room is a chamber out of corrugated iron with a floor drain. Then comes a refrigerated room. Going through these spaces, a narrative emerges. What kind of torture takes place behind those closed doors? How much blood was poured down that drain? Is the cold room a space to keep bodies or does it provide another torture method?
In another windowless linoleum-covered room, a children's pink mattress is the only piece of furniture. It automatically triggers more disturbing associations.
Gregor Schneider won the top prize at the Venice Biennale in 2001
A feeling of oppression emerges from these spaces. They raise questions about death and violence, morality and ethics.
Intimidating simulations
After going through the "Guantanamo" wing, visitors are left walking in the dark, until they reach a shabby living room and bedroom with cheap ingrain wallpaper, and a gray-plastered garage in a moldy smelling basement with an oil tank.
They are remains of Schneider's middle-class home "Totes Haus u r," an ambitious installation built by the artist inside the German Pavilion at the Biennale in Venice in 2001 - with which he also won the "Golden Lion" that year.
A room for 'German Angst'
Schneider has been building rooms in his works for many years. The now 47-year-old artist removes rooms from houses and builds them into new spaces. Or he reproduces copies of existing rooms.
Schneider bought Joseph Goebbel's former house and gutted it, and then sent the rubble to Warsaw
Two years ago, he bought the birth house of Adolf Hitler's minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, in Rheydt. He gutted it and had the demolition waste dumped in Warsaw. The performance was filmed; the video is shown at the Bonn exhibition.
Schneider's rooms are always closed, often soundproofed, and they rarely open onto the outside. One exception is a "mud room," which includes a clay basin and a hole in the ceiling. It can rain and snow in it; it was conceived to rot. The work is entitled "German Angst 3." "Germans are world champions in transmitting fear," Schneider says about it.
The exhibition "Wall Before Wall" runs at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn until February 19, 2017.
The Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn is featuring the works of conceptual artist Gregor Schneider, who is renowned for creating sinister spaces. (05.12.2016)
Related Subjects Gregor Schneider
Keywords arts, Gregor Schneider, exhibition
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Why artist Gregor Schneider is the master of German Angst | Arts | DW | 05.12.2016
Why artist Gregor Schneider is the master of German Angst
The works created by Gregor Schneider, winner of the Golden Lion in 2001, are eerily disturbing. They can now be experienced at an exhibition in Bonn called "Wall Before Wall."
Gregor Schneider's creepy art
Modern torture chambers
This aseptic linoleum corridor by German artist Gregor Schneider is designed in the style of the hallways of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The space, with its strong disinfectant smell, evokes unpleasant associations: Is anyone being tortured behind those fake doors?
Abandoned by God and the world
This street of a village in the Lower Rhine region appears deserted. In areas affected by brown coal mining, entire villages are emptied to be razed by giant diggers, creating ghost towns. The artist created a touching video with the surreal scenery in Garzweiler.
Schneider filmed these images in Kolkata (Calcutta), in the south of India. The video shows the construction of a temple; the streets are loud and busy. The artist reproduces this atmosphere in the Bonn Bundeskunsthalle museum, where the film is projected onto giant screens covering three walls.
The room collector
Gregor Schneider is a room collector. Sometimes he takes an existing structure down to rebuild it elsewhere. Other times he creates artificial spaces that trigger uncomfortable associations. This shower is one of the stations of the Bonn exhibition, a work entitled "Bathroom," from 2004.
A child's cell
A small pink mattress is the only piece of furniture in this windowless room with walls covered by linoleum. It looks like a children's cell in a secret prison - either Guantanamo, or perhaps the one Josef Fritzl built to hold his own daughter captive for 24 years? In any case, the space is disturbingly creepy.
Aesthetics of darkness
"The design principles of the artist are set in darkness," says Ulrich Loock, curator of the exhibition. Visitors also discover the rooms more clearly by going through the dark as well, such as through this tunnel leading to Schneider's children's room.
One room over, we find Gregor Schneider's "Alte Hausschlampe" lying on the floor. The conceptual artist's exhibition "Wall Before Wall" in Bonn can be seen through February 19, 2017.
Author: Stefan Dege (eg)
For the exhibition "Wall Before Wall" at the Bundeskunsthalle museum in Bonn, Gregor Schneider conceived 20 spaces, offering a retrospective of his works of the last 30 years.
It is dark in most of them. Darkness is one of the artist's guiding principles, says the curator of the exhibition, Ulrich Loock. Schneider rather sees his art as "a self-consuming production." One thing is clear: Theoretical discussions cannot convey what one feels experiencing the works of this artist first-hand.
"Dark Room" by Gregor Schneider
The entrance hall is filled with a video projection of a temple being built in Kolkata. It's vibrant and noisy, creating a shocking contrast with the following space: A steel door leads to an aseptic corridor with a series of fake doors, reproducing a ha
llway of Guantanamo Bay's top-secret high-security prison. It smells of disinfectant; it's screamingly silent.
Creepy imagery
The next room is a chamber out of corrugated iron with a floor drain. Then comes a refrigerated room. Going through these spaces, a narrative emerges. What kind of torture takes place behind those closed doors? How much blood was poured down that drain? Is the cold room a space to keep bodies or does it provide another torture method?
In another windowless linoleum-covered room, a children's pink mattress is the only piece of furniture. It automatically triggers more disturbing associations.
Gregor Schneider won the top prize at the Venice Biennale in 2001
A feeling of oppression emerges from these spaces. They raise questions about death and violence, morality and ethics.
Intimidating simulations
After going through the "Guantanamo" wing, visitors are left walking in the dark, until they reach a shabby living room and bedroom with cheap ingrain wallpaper, and a gray-plastered garage in a moldy smelling basement with an oil tank.
They are remains of Schneider's middle-class home "Totes Haus u r," an ambitious installation built by the artist inside the German Pavilion at the Biennale in Venice in 2001 - with which he also won the "Golden Lion" that year.
A room for 'German Angst'
Schneider has been building rooms in his works for many years. The now 47-year-old artist removes rooms from houses and builds them into new spaces. Or he reproduces copies of existing rooms.
Schneider bought Joseph Goebbel's former house and gutted it, and then sent the rubble to Warsaw
Two years ago, he bought the birth house of Adolf Hitler's minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, in Rheydt. He gutted it and had the demolition waste dumped in Warsaw. The performance was filmed; the video is shown at the Bonn exhibition.
Schneider's rooms are always closed, often soundproofed, and they rarely open onto the outside. One exception is a "mud room," which includes a clay basin and a hole in the ceiling. It can rain and snow in it; it was conceived to rot. The work is entitled "German Angst 3." "Germans are world champions in transmitting fear," Schneider says about it.
The exhibition "Wall Before Wall" runs at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn until February 19, 2017.
The Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn is featuring the works of conceptual artist Gregor Schneider, who is renowned for creating sinister spaces. (05.12.2016)
Related Subjects Gregor Schneider
Keywords arts, Gregor Schneider, exhibition
Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/2TkaA
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