For the duration of seven weeks two unemployed painters will be painting the exhibition spaces on the entire ground floor of the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig freshly white every day during the opening hours. Like a continuous process of keeping the space “virgin” this is a very simple act, but nevertheless with multiplied layers of significance.
The show “Zwischen anderen Ereignissen“ focuses on the activity that lies between two events in a museum which are usually not visible for the visitors: the renovation of the space and all preparations for the upcoming shows to happen. With this project the preparation is extended until that process becomes art itself. It can almost be seen as an excessive break in between the previous exhibition and the forthcoming show at the Galerie.
The show establishes a link to the social context of Leipzig in a concrete way by employing unemployed craftsmen for the period of seven weeks. This means the artists create a “real” situation by changing something in a small scale instead of conceptually addressing a critique on a broader, theoretical level.
The project looks like an endless process of renovation. Herewith repetition will be pointed out as something that has a quality of its own, depending on the point of which something is looked at. Elmgreen & Dragset highlight the importance of “non-efficient” activities which means activities that do not only focus on results (as it is most of the time in our life). It is only on the very surface that the labor seems senseless. In fact the project creates with the working (active) men and the watching (passive) visitor a situation for the spectator to be aware of himself as a reflecting subject.
Catalogue:
›Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset: Zwischen anderen Ereignissen/Between other events‹
Ausstellung: 6.2.-26.3.2000, Hrsg.: Jan Winkelmann, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, Leipzig 2000, (de/en)