Reliance Room

06/09/2014 by Bougy

2014, Site specific installation, Utengasse Sechzig, cur. Françoise Theis Verdarte. Blue filter, water cooler, carpet, concret base, handrail, plant, printed text in metal frame, inkjet print on dibon. With the collaboration of Douglas Stichbury and a writen contribution of Mareike Spendel

“A place of trust

Carpets and concrete bases, image and text, a water dispenser, a potted plant, a railing, background sound and blue foil. With these familiar elements Sylvain Baumann converts the space of utengasse sechzig into a place to linger, of waiting or into a lobby. But despite all the familiarity it eludes definition.

In a process of formal and thematic layering a social space unfolds, which again and again is also implemented on a further level in its interaction with the visitors. The result is a place of stratification, in the English sense of the word: stratification = the act of stratifying.

The sequence of formal horizontal and vertical planes carries and attracts and leads to a background layer which is designed by the image-text “Thank you for your cooperation”, a photography and sound. A female voice-over gives calm and clear instructions and advice. The sound material has been chosen by Sylvain Baumann from one of the many “how to behave”-guides from YouTube. The photograph itself is a work of stratification: You can see the photograph of a herd of monkeys in a natural environment, which hangs behind panes in a non-defined space. If you stand outside in front of the right window of the exhibition space, you become as an observer opposite this photography part of the layering.

During the development process of the exhibition Sylvain Baumann stood in a lively virtual exchange with Douglas Stichbury (artist, New Zealand) and an ongoing dialogue about the content and intention took place. Mareike Spendel (art historian, Berlin) was invited to write a meta-text about the exhibition from afar.”

Françoise Theis