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For “Lackluster/Lacklaster�
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a 60sq old and soon to be demolished attic is to be covered with varnish. This writing, as well as the piece it accompanies, attempts to be factual and neutral. It is located within the now, reflecting on the past and the future of the specific location. It uses “gloss over” and “transparency” as metaphors and plays with the possible interpretations.
“La
ckluster/Lacklaster”
takes place in an Attic of a typical residential house in Zinzow. It is located a stone throw away from a dreamy Château, owned by the Vielhabers family. The Vielhabers now own the old house and will soon turn it into their gardeners and tool house. The family who lived here until January this year has moved further away.
I was invited to enter the old ‘deserted’ house and was told I could do “whatever I want” in and within the space. Full with voyeuristic hopes, I went in, hoping to find something about the people who lived there, about life in Zinzow or life in general. But, as it turned out, I did not. I’ve realised I could not connect to this space in the way I initially wished for. There was nothing I could relate to. But this very disengagement and the odd and perhaps perverse desire to preserve the space as it is and even for a few more days, fascinated me. I recall Derrida in “Archive Fever” talking about the feverish desire for the archive. The fever not so much to enter it and use it, as to have it.1 And so it turned out that I have decided to preserve the space in its current condition. As mentioned, I was hoping something would jump at me and inspire me. I was not looking for anything in particular and thus I haven’t found anything particularly, only this – the hope to find something, the wanting to see and look at and the ability to look for something there.
The glossy varnish aims to reference the glass cases of the traditional museum, in which objects are aestheticized and robbed of their initial and or practical function. They are treated as symbols for whatever their exhibitors choose to show. Traditionally, the “ethnographic” were labelled in a supposedly minimalist, descriptive and objective fashion. And So, following an age old tradition, I exhibit a very private space that I have no understanding of and make it public. I like the comical aspect of turning a place, that is often either hidden or meant for storage, not only into a more presentable space, but an exhibition space. Not only is this a dialogue between private and public space, but also between the presentable and the non-presentable… |
