Ars Viva - z.B. Skulptur

Schwerin, Hannover, others
Award exhibition under the patronage of the Cultural Circle of the German Industry Association

Ars Viva - z.B. Skulptur

Traveling exhibition:
Staatliches Museum Schwerin (1993)
Kunstverein Hannover (1994)
Bonner Kunstverein (1994)
Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen, Magdeburg (1994)

This award exhibition under the patronage of the Cultural Circle of the German Industry Association (BDI) is an annual review of contemporary practice in the visual arts in Germany. Z. B. Skulptur. Ars Viva 93/94. presented Iris Haeussler, Leni Hoffmann, Eran Schaerf, Pia Stadtbäumer and Ute Weiss-Leder.

I exhibited work related to ou topos, Vienna (1989), ou topos, Munich (1990) and pro polis, Milano (1993). These were large, site specific installations that existed only for a limited time in a specific space and context. To present them in a museum space, I referenced the exhibition practice of the local museum of regional- or natural history. Artefacts, documents and other material evidence was condensed into showcases.

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» Iris Haeussler excluded the possibility to suggest an intimate environment by rebuilding the installation in a museal space. The core of her work, its authenticity, which is guaranteed only by the specific space in which it is installed, would be lost in such a staged construction. Haeussler once mentioned "Entire neighborhoods participate to create my work". But these cannot be relocated into the museum. Thus she chose a different form of presentation: documenting the three city-projects in showcases. [...] they demonstrate that the originals existed in Vienna, Munich and Milano, and only there were they authentic. Such authenticity cannot be recreated, whatever efforts the museum would want to expend. When Iris Haeussler abstains from such a staged production, she makes the gap between the local authenticity of the installations and their later exhibition the actual theme of the presentation. Thus the showcases do not deal only with Vienna, Munich and Milano, above all they are about a transformation that secures a possible existence of site-specifc art in museal spaces. «

Dr. Martina Fuchs (1993), Mögliche Existenzen, in: z.B. Skulptur, catalogue