MONO/e Na, noch da?

 The Ochsenkopf wallpaper Wall pattern antenna; colour: “Cool-Down-Pink”

An example of DIY improvisation, or self-help, is the so-called “Ochsenkopf antenna" that was able to receive television programming from the West from the television broadcaster on the Ochsenkopf mountain in Bavaria. Today these bizarre antenna constructions can only be found on abandoned buildings.

All the walls of the exhibition were covered with an Ochsenkopf antenna motif using a patterned roller designed by Haus am Gern.

The colour, “Cool-Down-Pink” causes blood pressure and heart rate to sink verifiably, making people calm and sociable.

Na, noch da?

(Are you still around?)

2010, Installation in seven parts, mixed media In the context of the festival PLATTE, SCHRAUBE, FUGE: Experimente zwischen Stadt, KĂśrper und Raum (SLAB, SCREW, JOINT: Experiments in city, body and time) at Kunstverein Leipzig Magazine to accompany the exhibition: Na, noch da?

Photographic series of 55 wall and fence jumps Edition of 50, ISBN 978-3-9523691-0-4

Platte, Schraube, Fuge Three dramatic texts by Jasper A. Friederich, Maren B. Gingeleit and Patrick Hofmann ISBN 978-3-9523691-2-8

The exhibition Na, noch da? (eng. Are you still around?) was a pastiche on the old and the new East Germany, or rather about what remained legible and recognisable of it in a subjective inventory.

At Kunstverein Leipzig, Haus am Gern built a place made up of seven positions – a place that spoke of systems, fragmentary memory, utopia and identity.

Elements of the work: Na, noch da? (Are you still around?)

Neon letters, orange; Script: Schulausgangsschrift SAS; 100 cm x 44 cm The Ochsenkopf Wallpaper Wall pattern antenna, colour: “Cool-Down-Pink” Das Unsichtbarkeitskombinat (The Invisibility Combine) 4 mirrors mounted on 4 brick walls; measurements: 2 cm x 160 cm x 120 cm; 2 cm x 100 cm x 120 cm PLATTE, SCHRAUBE, FUGE 3 mascot costumes for children PLATTE, SCHRAUBE, FUGE I-III Three dramatic texts for slab, screw and joint in three booklets I) Screw, Joint, Slab One-act allegorical musical

by Jasper A. Freidrich; publisher, media scholar and writer, Leipzig.

II) A Play for a Screw, a Slab and a Joint

by Maren B. Gingeleit, actress and writer living in Sønderborg (DK).

III) Block Box. Slab, Screw, Joint. A Scene.

by Patrick Hofman, writer, Berlin. relief I & II relief I – The Wall Jump relief II – The Sausage with Three Ends 2 bas reliefs, lime wood, 4 cm x 60 cm x 80 cm Made by Jürgen Strege, painter and sculptor, Leipzig.

SEVEN DRUMS (Egon, Erich, Walter, Margot, Günter, Alexander, Markus) Seven garden barbecues; washing machine drums, Inox Designed and built by Hannes Fechtner and André Berchtold, Leipzig.

On the conditions of a particle in a potential well Trmasan Bruialesi

In physics, a potential well is the region surrounding a local minimum of potential energy. It may be illustrated using the notion of a body in the earth’s gravita­ tional field: a body lying in a well cannot leave it unless it is lifted beyond the edge of the well, by re­ceiving sufficient energy to surmount the local minimum within the system. In classical physics, the minimum en­­ergy required to leave a potential well is precisely defined. For example, a human being cannot in its own body produce anywhere near enough kinetic energy to escape the gravitational field of the earth. However, this rule does not apply to quantum physics, where potential energy may escape a potential well without added energy due to the probabilistic characteristics of quantum particles; in these cases a particle may be imagined to tunnel through the walls of a potential well. A special case is the infinite potential well, sometimes called the particle in a box model. It describes a particle that is trapped in a small space surrounded by impenetrable barriers, because the level of energy required is infinitely too large even for a quantum particle to leave the potential. 1 Na, noch da? (Are you still around?), both title of the exhibition and itself a glowing exhibit, provocatively inquires after our whereabouts – are we within the well? Are we back in the well? Or are we no longer with­in the well due to exceeding the local minimum of energy within the system? But if so, where are we?

Haus am Gern did not learn much about quantum

 Fig.

physics during their field research in East Germany, but instead they did learn a lot about people who are lifted to the edge of the infinite well by the energy of history and have now arrived in a place that remains undefined despite the seeming order of things.

On the other side of the mirror, everything is inverted, and after spending some time in this Elsewhere, things being the wrong way round starts to seem normal – and vice versa. If the mirror is removed, however, the other side is suddenly missing, and the question “Are you still around?” is no longer meaningful or comforting.

Na noch da? is not merely a pastiche on the old and the new East Germany, it asks a more general question about the status of democratic society that can change its conditions – and therefore, history – at any time, if it becomes aware of the potential of its own memory.

Trmasan Bruialesi 1

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentialtopf, http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Potential_well and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_ potential_well.

Trmasan Bruialesi *1956 in Tbilissi, Georgia and studied Slavistics with a focus on ancient Slavic texts of early Christianity. Since 1989 he has been working in Berlin as a translator, author and musician.

 «Na, noch da?»

Orange neon letters; Font: Schulausgangsschrift SAS

“Are you still around?” was the wry question with which the Leipzigers greeted each other when they showed up to work on Monday mornings in the autumn of 1989 before the fall of the Wall. The borders in Hungary and the Czechoslovakia were no longer tight, and masses of people left the ‘state of workers and farmers’.

The Schulausgangsschrift SAS, a school alphabet, was developed at the end of the 1950s in the GDR by Renate Trost, Albert Kapr and Elisabeth Kaestner. The Ministry of Education decided to make SAS mandatory in GDR schools. The SAS is still the compulsory learners' alphabet in the states of Berlin, Hamburg, Saxony and Saarland.



Der Praktikus, a do-it-yourself instruction manual whose goal was nothing less than the “improvement of working and living conditions for workers, resulting in an all-round strengthening of the German Democratic Republic”, is no different – neither aesthetically, nor practically – from its Western counterparts.

Ideological distinctions, however, could be made, for the purpose of Praktikus was to “preserve the value of the national economy”, as well as to “relieve the pro­ duction and repair concerns” and to “promote the collective educational process in groups”. Or in other words: the people were not driven to do-it-yourself projects and handicrafts by an economy of scarcity and GDR bureaucracy, but rather out of a sense of res­ ponsibility to the people and the state.

But in the end this system turned the citizens of the GDR into a perpetually innovative people of handymen, auto mechanics, and gardeners; a resource and

an attitude which we gladly drew upon and adopted for our exhibition.

The exhibition Na, noch da? (eng. Are you still around?) was a pastiche on the old and the new East Germany, or rather about what remained legible and recognisable of it in a subjective inventory. At Kunstverein Leip­zig, with the help of official contributors*, we used this material to build a place that spoke of systems, fragmentary memory, utopia and identity.

Haus am Gern * Our thanks go to Jasper A. Friedrich, Maren B. Gingeleit, Patrick Hofmann, Meigl Hoffmann, Andrea Höhn, Maurice Göldner, Jürgen Strege, Hannes Fechtner, André Berchtold, Rainer Strege, Marcin + Magda Dallig-Syta, Nadin Maria Rüfenacht, Christine Friedrich-Leye, Christine D. Hölzig, Annette + Erasmus Schröter, Reinhard Krehl, Britt Schlehahn, Ludwig Henne, Sophie Kurzer, Christine Rahn, René Medick, Lydia Möst and Jerry Haenggli !

 

  

  

visible

inverted

I

I

I

I

I = invisible

 Das Unsichtbarkeitskombinat (The Invisibility Combine) 1 4 mirrors on visible stone walls

“The understanding of scenarios, in which the state of the surroundings is momentarily imperceptible, generally also brings an understanding of where the boundaries of the perceptional gap lie and how they can be circumvented. There is an interest, on the one hand, in intentionally bringing about a state of rela­tive invisibility, while correspondingly revealing invisible things.”

“When an object is located behind another object, it is invisible for the observer, but the object in front of it is visible. An intelligent observer might eventually wish to inspect the momentarily hidden areas as well, provided that the object in front gives her or him cause to do so. There is the possibility that the obstruction is visible only from one side, from many sides, or even from all sides. Invisibility is not a property of an object, but rather the result of the properties of the obstruction.”

These quotes from Wikipedia can be transferred one-to-one to the former GDR: the “invisibilising” of “dangers to the state”, goods, thoughts and opportunities while simultaneously endeavoring to “visibilise” the activities and thoughts of the citizens, which means keeping them in the realm of the observable.

The “Invisibility Combine” (adapted from Karl Bednarik’s Invisibility Machine) is a central element of the exhibition, with four large mirrors mounted on precisely aligned brick walls.

It is self-evident that the “Invisibility Combine” only functions from a clearly defined viewpoint.

1

Kombinat (eng. combine) was the term used for state owned indus­

trial conglomerates in the former GDR and other socialist countries,

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combine_(enterprise)

 Platte, Schraube, Fuge 3 mascot costumes for children Haus am Gern commissioned three mascot costumes from a stuffed animal factory in Poland: a SCREW, a SLAB and a JOINT.These three child-size costumes are integrated into the Unsicht­barkeitskombinat (Invisibility Combine), meaning the SCREW is visible from a certain view­point, while the SLAB and JOINT are not.

 relief I & II relief I – The Wall Jump relief II – The Sausage with Three Ends 2 bas reliefs, limewood, approx. 60 x 80 cm Made by Jürgen Strege, painter and sculptor, Leipzig.

relief I – The Wall Jump, Shows a man climbing over a wall that also has a flat relief pattern. The picture is from a series of 55 wall and fence jumps captured by Haus am Gern in the area and included in the exhi­ bition as a booklet. relief II – The Sausage with Three Ends, Shows a three-ended sausage on a grill. An acquaintance of Haus am Gern’s who grew up in the GDR and works in Switzerland reckons that the butcher in his village in the east of Leipzig produced a sausage with three ends. We traveled to the village and asked the butcher about it, but he didn’t want to remember anything. “Everything has an end, only a sausage has two”, sings Stephan Remmler. The GDR had an end too, or did it have many?

Booklet Na, noch da? Photoseries of 55 wall- and fence jumps.

Na, noch da?

(Are you still around?)

Exhibition in the context of the festival “PLATTE, SCHRAUBE, FUGE: Experimente zwischen Stadt, Körper und Zeit” (“Slab, Screw, Joint. Experiments in city, body and time”) at the Kunstverein Leipzig

By Christine Dorothea Hölzig

Cover of the GENEX catalogue, edition of 1987. The catalogue was printed in Biel/Bienne (CH).

It isn’t always clear why some neighborhoods are hip and others aren’t. Individual factors, such as contemporary taste and cul­tu­ re, play a role alongside location, safe surroundings and ac­cess to facilities. The Kolonnadenviertel – a neighborhood in CentralWest Leipzig – isn’t known for being a lively and happening place, even though it’s located between the attractive City Ring and the Johanna Park. If you look into the neighborhood’s history; you’ll see that this hasn’t always been the case.

Situated directly outside the city gate, the Kolonnadenviertel served as a relaxing getaway for well-to-do citizens until the first half of the 19th century. As the city developed and sprawled, the Kolonnadenviertel became an attractive residential area. Do­ro­ theen­platz, Nikischplatz, the so-called Künstlerhaus (Artist House), two important synagogues, residences and many gar­ dens cropped up. After fascists burned down the synagogues during the Reichsprogromnacht in 1938, the majority of the buil­ dings in the Kolonnadenviertel fell to rubble and ashes during the allied bombing of Leipzig on December 04, 1943.

Then a sort of Sleeping Beauty spell fell over the neighborhood.

The GDR’s economic power wasn’t enough to repair all the da­ mage sustained during the war. For many buildings only the most necessary repairs were made. A rational architecture was used in the GDR to construct desperately needed tenements.

The majority of the buildings were uniform prefabricated hou­ sing units. However, from the beginning of the 1980’s, in certain areas of importance for urban planning, the uniform appea­ rance of some of the prefabricated housing units was no longer so strictly enforced, or the houses were made to fit into their historical surroundings.

This was the case in Leipzig’s Kolonnadenviertel. Prefabricated housing was combined with Wilhelminian architecture for the first time in a pilot project for urban redevelopment, attractively tying together the disparate parts of the neighborhood. At the time of their construction the newly built residences were high­ ly sought after. Indeed, party and state loyalists were given pre­ ferential treatment and were more often allowed to move into

the new buildings. Acceptance into these housing units itself was seen as a distinction.

Interest in the successful architectural solution and therefore in the Kolonnadenviertel as a whole, plummeted after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The reasons for this include aversion to the prescribed uniformity characteristic of the GDR and exemplified by the prefabricated housing units. Just as important, however, is the fact that Leipzig, despite heavy war damage, boasts the greatest stock of original Wilhelminian residential buildings in Germany, the renovation of which began shortly after the end of the GDR. These unique, lavish buildings – and of course their bour­geois air – make them the most sought after rental pro­ perties in the city. The Kolonnadenviertel, so close to the city center, seems to have been pushed aside. Nowadays, it’s mostly viewed as a place people pass through on their way elsewhere.

The Kunstverein Leipzig has long been resident on Kolon­ nadenstrasse. In June 2010 it invited visitors to the festival PLATTE, SCHRAUBE, FUGE: Experimente zwischen Stadt, Raum und Zeit. Through exhibitions, artistic interventions, perfor­ mances, city walking tours and discussions, the Kunstverein asked what opportunities an overlooked downtown neighbour­ hood might contain. Is there room for experiments, would they be noticed, can art bring inhabitants and visitors closer together and bring about identification by posing questions and prompting action? What potential does the Kolonnadenviertel have? The Kunstverein’s invitation was aimed mainly at artists from elsewhere who would bring new perspectives to the place and situation. The program challenged interested artists; they had to travel to Leipzig, walk those streets, have discussions with inhabitants, and get involved. In the process, the engage­ ment with the problematic of subjects and spatial relations pushed the relevance of these topics far beyond the boundaries of architectural discourse.

The artist couple Barbara Meyer Cesta and Rudolf Steiner (to­ gether Haus am Gern) were invited to show an exhibition in the association’s gallery space as part of the “Slab, Screw, Joint” project. The Swiss artists didn’t approach the festival theme from a political or urban planning perspective. Instead they chose to portray the daily life of GDR citizens. They examined ordinary situations, sensitivities and circumstances. They del­ ved into history, roughly at the time of the completion of the Kolonnadenviertel. They began with a lot of reading and numer­ ous conversations. However, Haus am Gern did not undertake the project without any prior knowledge. The city of Leipzig, Eastern Germany, its history and its people were already fami­ liar to them due to their involvement with another art project, LIFETIME EUROPE (which first brought them to Leipzig in 2005). They travel to Leipzig several times a year to visit friends and look after LIFETIME EUROPE, the only History Free Space on earth, in Leipzig’s Anger-Crottendorf neighborhood. This close contact to Leipzig has enabled Barbara Meyer Cesta and Rudolf Steiner to develop a sensibility for the situation in which GDR citizens found themselves.

For their 2010 exhibition Na, noch da? (eng. Are you still around?), they expanded upon their prior knowledge by conduc­ ting more in-depth research. They created a complex room in­ stal­lation for the Kunstverein’s gallery space, which was com­ pel­ling in its subtle presence. The absence of propagandistic

juxtapositions and loud statements left plenty of space for viewers to think and feel their way into the social context. Se­ve­ ral biographical accounts of the euphoria resulting from the new open society and the fresh start in a non-dictatorial system in 1989 are accompanied by discontinuity and disen­chant­ment.

A changed consciousness followed the fall of the Wall; therefore, the generations who directly experienced the GDR era need encouragement to recall the past without distor­tion, while the younger generation needs the experiences and impressions of others in order to share in historical knowledge on the level of feeling. Haus am Gern confronted both these challenges.

During their inquiries, the Swiss artists came across many bro­ chures, including the Genex Catalog and the book, Der Prak­ tikus. These illustrate cornerstones of everyday life in the GDR: the yearning for consumer goods, which were largely lacking, and the will to compensate for this deficiency – as far as it was possible – through do-it-yourself initiatives.

The Geschenkdienst- und Kleinexporte GmbH (Gift Service and Small Exports Holding Company, abbr. Genex) was founded in 1956 by the GDR government as a source of foreign currency inflow. Originally, Genex was only a gift service for church con­ gregations. After the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the business was expanded, even as far as Denmark and Switzerland.

Goods could be ordered for East Germans using Deutschmarks.

Up to 90 % of the items in the catalogue were produced in the GDR. The catalogue offered luxury foods and consumer goods, as well as motor bikes and cars (without the usual waiting period of several years), campers and even prefab houses, the so-called Neckermann houses. Discontentment resulted from the fact that only GDR citizens with special privileges or those with relatives in the West had access to the pleasures of the mail order gift service.

Almost twenty editions of Der Praktikus, a "do it yourself in­ struc­tion manual", were published by the VEB Fachbuchverlag in Leipzig starting in the 1960s. “Be your own handyman” – un­ der this motto every bit of knowledge that could “free the overburdened handyman from trivial tasks” as well as every pos­ sible form of house and garden self-help was collected. These books had to be produced in great numbers, because Genex Catalogue and Intershop goods were only available to the very few. And so it was that a collective “handicrafts” culture and the mutual exchange of tools and materials became the norm in the GDR. The sarcastic saying, “There’s still more to get out of our factory”, illustrates the state of affairs that materials and pro­ duc­tion appliances were scarce and were “branched out” of the workshops for private use.

Haus am Gern approached these aspects of GDR life in two ways.

For one, they involved various artists and handymen in the preparation of the exhibition. Secondly, they included a GDRera handicraft product in the presentation, which was recons­ truc­ted especially for the exhibition by two Leipzigers. The wash­ing machine drum grill is relatively easy to construct: re­ mo­ve the stainless steel drum from an old washing machine.

The small holes are important for supplying oxygen to the fire.

Three legs and an improvised grill complete the fully-functional barbecue. Barbara Meyer Cesta and Rudolf Steiner gave the seven grills names like Margot, Erich, Walter or Markus. The na­mes create associations to leading GDR politicians who bore

responsibility for the inequalities but who probably never had to improvise in such ways.

Haus am Gern gave another example of GDR-era improvisation in the exhibition. The walls were painted with a patterned roller (made by Haus am Gern). Upon closer inspection, the pattern on the wall turns out to be not only decoration, but an ornament that shows the so-called “Ochsenkopf antenna”. This was a DIY an­ tenna for receiving television programming from the West. The name “Ochsenkopf” comes from a mountain in the Bavarian Fich­­tel Mountains. The ARD, broadcasting from Ochsenkopf, could be received in the GDR using this device. Making such an antenna at home was quite simple. In the 1960s there were reprisals against citizens found to have Ochsenkopf antennae on their roofs. Consequently, people secretly installed the antennae under the roofs or in their apartments. In the 1970s there was tole­rance for the Ochsenkopf antennae, because the state was unable to combat the people’s curiosity about the Western part of Ger­many and the rest of the world using bans alone.

Two lime wood reliefs (made by artist Jürgen Strege from Haus am Gern’s templates) were integrated into the wall design. One shows a “jump over a wall.” It is the realisation of a photograph of a man (Rudolf Steiner) jumping over a GDR-era wall in Leipzig.

The motif of acting in urban space may seem neutral. But in this exhibition, in Leipzig, the historical and political dimensions of the themes “Wall”, “Peaceful Revolution” and “Political Turning Point” necessarily came into play. The second relief, “Sausage with Three Ends”, built on this idea. The first part of the saying “Everything has an end” remains relevant, although, over twenty years ago, very few in the East believed it. The GDR dictatorship seemed overpowering, and yet that eventually changed. In Leipzig there was courage and spirit. History was revealed as something changeable, something that could be actively transformed.

Many people believed a third way was possible, a society that was neither socialist nor capitalist. But who has ever eaten a threeended sausage?

Haus am Gern built walls in the middle of the gallery space. “Walls, of all things,” some visitors might have thought to them­selves.

But there are walls all over the world: as barriers, as pro­tection and support, as well as in our heads. We can’t deceive ourselves about that, even now. The artist duo’s installation Das Unsicht­ barkeitskombinat (The Invisibility Combine) is pri­ma­rily about deception. The installation consists of precisely aligned walls with mirrors hung in such a way that they not only reflect, but also conceal. Subjects never perceive reality as a fully pre­sent totality. To make viewers conscious of this was another in­ten­ tion of the piece. The viewers’ position, angle and posture deter­ mine the reality they see. The parallels to the GDR system be­ came clearly apparent. The mirrors in the exhibition didn’t me­ rely reflect and hide the corners of the room, but also the PLATTE (slab), SCHRAUBE (screw) and FUGE (joint). These child­ ­ren’s costumes – conceived by Barbara Meyer Cesta and Rudolf Steiner and made by a Polish service contractor – were not included in the exhibition as merely representative associations to the setting. These too, in personified form, direct our thoughts toward historical depths. A joint, for example, may refer to more than just a connecting gap. The German Fuge, like the English fugue, is also a term for a complex musical composition. Both the English and the German derive from the Latin fuga, mean­ ing ‘escape’. The English word ‘fugitive’ has the same source.

Which brings us full circle: Haus am Gern chose Na, noch da?

(Are you still around?) as the title for the exhibition. It was an ever-present question for over twenty years in the GDR. The German Socialist Unity Party regime reacted to increasing pressure from GDR citizens by accelerating the processing of exit visas. No small number of GDR citizens were “released” from their homeland at the end of the 1980s. The departure wa­ ve reached its peak in 1989 due to the permeability of the Hun­ ga­rian/Austrian border and denaturalisation via the embassy in Prague. Among those who stayed, or better, were left behind, the question “Are you still around?” was frequently heard, espe­ cially after the summer holidays. The tone of voice was often multi-layered. The phrase awakens emotional memories of that time, shortly before the first demonstrations in Leipzig. For the lettering on the illuminated sign, Haus am Gern used the standardised alphabet that was taught in schools during the GDR era. This creates a puzzling emotional attraction to the work for those who learned to write in this way.

Such associations show the strength of the exhibition. It was quietly and emotionally moving, did not try to function as pro­ paganda, but instead allowed for personal memory and challen­ ged viewers to engage with the issues. Viewers who didn’t en­ gage either emotionally or by gathering information, were not able to get much out of the exhibition. But those who opened them­selves up to it learned and in a sense ‘experienced’ much about living and breathing in the GDR thirty years ago. This certainly also required personal engagement; the exhibition demanded a confrontation with one’s own biography, to judge one’s own courage, tolerance and contemporary life style choi­ ces. In the Kolonnadenviertel, Barbara Meyer Cesta and Rudolf Steiner brought the past to light and made it contemporary through memory, conversation and active engagement. In Na noch da? they defined the present not merely as the reflection of history, but provoked fundamental questions about the struggle for existential meaning and the relationship of the individual to society. This is precisely what the artists invoke with their per­ formance and installation histories; for only when we are conscious of history, can we venture forth into something new.

Christine D. Hölzig studied art history in Leipzig. She works as a freelance curator and is the author of numerous publications.

Since 2003, she has contributed to the cultural section of the Leip­ ziger Volkszeitung. In 2006/2007, she was the director of “Made in Leipzig” a project initiated by the Leipzig Foundation for Culture.

From 2006, she has been editor of the arts magazine, KUNST­ STOFF. Additionally, she has been a member of various juries and commissions. Since 2008 she has been involved with the expertforum for art in public space of the city of Leipzig, and from 2010 a consultant on the distribution of visual arts grants for the city of Leipzig.

Still around: Hannes Fechtner and André Berchtold.

In Kollonadenstrasse: Haus am Gern fired up Egon, Erich, Walter, Margot,

Still around too: Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the

Günter, Alexander and Markus at the opening.

SED 1971–1989, in a gazebo.

 Seven Drums 7 Garden Barbecues (Egon, Erich, Walter, Margot, Günter, Alexander, Markus) Designed and made by: Hannes Fechtner and André Berchtold, Leipzig Hannes Fechtner, Bernd Seidel, Tilo Baumgärtel and Nadin Rüfenacht expertly discuss sausages.

Here we see the spirit of the Praktikus irrespective of any “political turning points” or the fall of a Wall: In an allotment garden in AngerCrottendorf, garden lover and jack-of-all-trades Hannes Fechtner cultivates improvisation and camaraderie. Colleagues meet there after the working day is over (or sometimes even before) for a beer, and occa­ sio­nally they grill a sausage.

In Hannes Fechtner’s allotment: Final rehearsal for Egon, Erich, Walter, Margot, Günter, Alexander and Markus.

As garden barbecues are either too expensive or of low quality, Hannes – in true GDR style – constructed seven barbecues out of scrap iron washing machine drums. But in Hannes’ experience, scrap iron isn’t so easy to come by these days – some of it had to be imported from Switzerland.

The barbecues were inaugurated on the opening day of the exhibition along with the Bürgerverein Kolonnadenviertel e.V. – using ordinary sausages.

Bernd Seidel, chairman of the small garden association Anger-Crottendorf e.V., as grill-master.

 PLATTE, SCHRAUBE, FUGE I–III 3 Pieces for Slab, Screw and Joint; three booklets

The premiere of the pieces took place at the exhibition opening with Meigl Hoffmann, Andrea Höhn, Jasper A. Friedrich and Franziska Schneider.

I Screw, Joint, Slab.

One-act allegorical musical

by Jasper A. Freidrich; publisher, media scholar and writer, Leipzig.

II A Play for a Screw, a Slab and a Joint.

by Maren B. Gingeleit; actress and author living Sønderborg, Denmark.

III Block Box. Slab, Screw, Joint. A Scene.

by Patrick Hofmann; writer living in Berlin.

He was awarded the Robert Walser Prize for his debut novel Die letzte Sau (The last sow) in April 2010, in Robert Walser and Haus am Gern’s hometown Biel/Bienne. The novel takes place in the south of Leipzig and tells of the last slaughtering day (Sausage is a revolution for the intestines) for a family of farmers, whose farm had to be cleared away to make room for a coal mine in 1992.

 Fig. left to right Meigl Hofffmann, Andrea Höhn, Jasper A. Friedrich, Franziska Schneider

PLATTE, SCHRAUBE, FUGE II A play for a Screw, a Slab and a Joint by

Maren B. Gingeleit

Platte: Fuge:

Schraube:

Platte:

Schraube: Fuge:

Schraube: Fuge:

Schraube:

Fuge:

Platte: Fuge:

Platte:

Schraube:

Platte:

Schraube:

schraube.

schraube.

Platte:

platte.

Fuge:

schraube.

Schraube:

fuge.

Platte:

schraube.

Schraube:

fuge.

Fuge:

schraube lose.

schraube platte. platte fest.

Alle:

oh.

plumps.

fuge platte.

Fuge:

fuge fest.

fuge.

Platte:

platte.

Fuge:

fuge.

schraube.

Platte:

schraube.

Fuge:

platte fest.

platte.

fuge fest.

platte. schraube.

mist.

fuge.

Schraube:

schraube platte fest. fest.

Schraube:

schraube fest.

schraube.

platte.

Schraube:

hand.

teller.

schraube.

Schraube:

Schraube:

platte lose.

Schraube:

Platte:

drehe. drehe.

Platte:

schraube.

Platte:

Platte:

drehe.

Platte:

Platte:

drehe. platte.

platte.

platte.

Platte:

Fuge:

fuge.

Platte:

Fuge:

Fuge:

Schraube:

Schraube:

Fuge:

platte. Schraube: schraube.

wand. teller.

platte fest.

(wieder von vorn, bis man nicht mehr will.)

Credits Hosts Kunstverein Leipzig (Leipzig Art Association) / Reinhard Krehl / Britt Schlehahn Accommodation Ludwig Henne / Nadin Maria Rüfenacht / Jürgen Strege Research Reinhard Krehl / Britt Schlehahn / Annette + Erasmus Schröter / Jasper + Christine Friedrich-Leye / Rainer Strege / Christine D. Hölzig / Jens Koppka Wall paintings Lydia Möst Masonry René Medick Installation Jerry Haenggli / Sophie Kurzer / Christine Rahn

Typesetting Maurice Göldner Reading / Director, Sound Jasper A. Friedrich Voices Andrea Höhn / Franziska Schneider / Meigl Hoffmann / Jasper A. Friedrich Bas Relief Jürgen Strege Barbecue Hannes Fechtner / André Berchtold Costumes Kolor Plusz, Koszalin (PL) Production management PL Marcin & Magda Dallig-Syta Mirrors Glassblowing Master Thomas Gärlich, Leipzig

dramatic texts Jasper A. Friedrich / Maren B. Gingeleit / Patrick Hofmann

Supported by Pro Helvetia