Sprachfetzen, Geschichtsabfälle, Redelumpen

Eine Rauminstallation über die Documenta XIII

Redelumpen Redelumpen Redelumpen Redelumpen Redelumpen Redelumpen

The readable language scrap banners 37 pieces each 250 x 32,9 cm total 250 x 1217,3 cm
the 5 part rags composition each 194 x 124 cm total 194 x 620 cm
the historical rubbish (a barrow with rubbish of information) height 100 cm width 75 cm length 120 cm




Language Scraps, Historical Rubbish, Speech Rags

“A rag-and-bone man in the early morning spears the speech rags and language scraps from the floor and throws them grumbling and stubbornly, a little drunkenly, in his cart, not without letting now and again one or the other of these faded cottons 'Humanity', 'introspectiveness', 'contemplation' flutter mockingly in the morning wind.“
Walter Benjamin in his essay about Siegfried Kracauer

During the Documenta 13 I strayed like a rag-and-bone man by the parks and public rooms and picked up the language scraps of conversations of other people. First out of sheer curiosity in the gossip, then as a specific action.

What looked at first, according to Heidegger, like collecting pure gossip caused by the naked desire for information, by the desire to communicate about something, later, with the artistic interpretation of these fragments, opened for me an absolutely new knowledge.

Our time is marked by materialism and virtuality. The towns are desolate, serviceable, no longer places of distraction, dispersion, strolling, visions, dreams, talking and communication. Zombification takes place. Parks mutate to fitness centers, to places of purpose-related activities, like jogging, drumming, dog walking....

During the Documenta 13 the public rooms, parks, streets and places changed into places of fascination, amazement and enthusiasm. Public space on one hand, however, at the same time protected because on this spectacular occasion, the possibilities offered for strolling, for visions, dreams and talking, free from the “usefulness mania”.

„The stroller becomes the rag-and-bone man, the collector of dialectic pictures, who transforms rubbish (rébuts) into riddle (rébus). “

The graphic presentation of the language scraps, the withdrawal of readable content opened for me the possibility to follow substantial and formal references, to read truth and to discover connections by "In-Formation".

What do the speech rags, the language scraps reveal, micro logically looked at, what do these many single moments express in their totality? What is behind this gossip, behind that ... „what the people are saying“(Heidegger)? Longings, dreams, everyday matters, aggression, fury, lack of understanding ... What are the cultural signs, where are concealed orders to be discovered? How do all these belong together where is the concealed Duktus? How do we recognize a time epoch?

„Really philologically, the attempt was also to hold the picture of the history tight in the insignificant fixations of the existence, its rubbish, as it were. “ (Schöttker, Wizisla, S.58)

What happens if people in any manner are connected with each other? Which function fulfils art in such processes? „Art is a spiritual function of man with the purpose to release him from the chaos of life (tragedy). “ Kurt Schwitters

The composition of speech rags and language scraps may open a perspective of how humans can communicate, free from purpose-engaged compulsions. The piece of art should release thought processes to the put questions. The viewer is invited to move physically, emotionally and spiritually in a constant change between the readable and the illustrative.