Re-Reading Space
Dancers performing Plaza Minuet in the post-modern lobby of the American headquarters of Deutsche Bank in New York in 2007. They are instructed by the artist Pablo Bronstein and the choreographer Hilary Nanney, forming a conscious contrast to the everyday pedestrians, who move freely in this semi-public space.
Katrin Mayer, passer qc en revue, Bibliothekswohnung, Berlin 2008, detail.
For many artists the exhibition space has become a source for producing works that ‘re-read’ or introduce additional layers into the site of the work. In Katrin Mayer’s and in Pablo Bronstein’s practices, this notion of re-reading is prevalent. Based on thorough research into the particular historical and contextual conditions of a site, they produce new works specifically for each show. Mayer selects specific image and text material accumulated during her research and combines it in wall displays in the exhibition site. Deploying the grid structure, the ambiguity of words and various ways of constructing meaning through reading across the surface are suggested. This writing with pictures simultaneously marks the space and inserts differences, in close connection to the artist’s engagement with theories of gender and identity. In Pablo Bronstein’s work, architecture appears as a backdrop to the performance of citizenship and gender, particularly as it has been represented through certain behavioral codes in the 18th century and in post-modernism. Thus the moment of queer comportment refers back to the culture of ‘sprezzatura,’ which means acting in a light-mannered way without betraying any effort and is simultaneously related to conscious role-playing games in today’s society. Architecture is proposed as a display of culture and existing relations of power and is the overarching element in his cross-media work. In view of the different spatial characters of the two artists’ work, it becomes relevant to ask what significance notions of space, objecthood and the viewer have. How do the artists make use of performative strategies to enhance their ideas on staging and re-reading?
Re-Reading Space Displayer / 037