New catalogue:

Gregor Schneider
Ernst Franz Vogelmann Prize for Sculpture 2023

Edited by: Marc Gundel, Rita E. Täuber
Text: Marc Gundel, Norman Rosenthal, Rita E. Täuber, Susanne Titz
Publisher: Snoeck
Pages: 144
Dimensions (L/W): 23 x 18,5 cm
Languages: Deutsch, Englisch
ISBN: 978-3-86442-421-2

Upcoming

Artist-Talk with Gregor Schneider, Kunsthalle Vogelmann, Heilbronn, Germany

24.09.2023 | 11:30 am

More info: Kunsthalle Heilbronn

Home is where you're happy, Haus Mödrath, Kerpen, Germany, Curator: Gesine Borcherdt

08.10.2023 - 25.08.2024

Current:

Gregor Schneider Homeless, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Berlin, Germany

15.09.2023 - 04.11.2023

Film still: Kunstlandschaft, Tagebau Garzweiler 2022
© Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn

Openning: Friday, 15th September 2023, 6-9 pm

More info: Konrad Fischer Galerie

Tod und Teufel, Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany, Curator: Westrey Page

14.09.2023 - 21.01.2024

GEGENWARTSGESELLSCHAFT – 50 Jahre / 50 years Produzentengalerie Hamburg, Produzentengalerie Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany, Curator: Mario Kramer

08.09.2023 - 22.12.2023

250 Jahre Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Galerie Ute Parduhn, Düsseldorf, Germany

01.09.2023 - 30.10.2023

Gregor Schneider, Ernst Franz Vogelmann Prize for Sculpture 2023, Kunsthalle Vogelmann, Heilbronn, Germany, Curator: Rita Täuber, Marc Gundel

15.07.2023 - 29.10.2023

Terra Nova, Elsdorf 2022
© Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn

More info:

• Kunsthalle Vogelmann
• Laudatio: Ernst Franz Vogelmann Prize for Sculpture 2023
• Claudia Ihlefeld, Die dunkle Seite der Welt: Bildhauer Gregor Schneider in Heilbronn, Heilbronner Stimme, 14th Juli 2023
• Ivonne Schowtka, Bildhauer Gregor Schneider in der Kunsthalle Heilbronn, SWR, 18th Juli 2023
• Angela Pontzen, Gregor Schneider erhält Skulptur-Preis für sein Lebenswerk, Rheinische Post, 29th Juli 2023
• Adrienne Braun, Goebbels’ Wohnhaus zerlegt, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 6th August 2023
• Fritz-Kador, Brigitte, Radikale Räume, Rhein-Neckar Zeitung, 8th August 2023
• Schmidt, Harry, Verschränkung von Performance, Installation und Architektur, LKZ (online), 18th August 2023
• Schmidt, Harry, Verschränkung von Performance, Ludwigsburger Kreiszeitung, 19th August 2023
• Feil, Christoph, Bis die Alarmanlage in der Kunsthalle Vogelmann zufrieden piepst, Stimme (online), 23rd August 2023

Unendliche Ausstellung, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany, Curator: Sam Bardaouil, Till Fellrath, Alice Koegel

16.06.2023 -

bildwiderstand. garzweiler in film und fotografie, Kunsthaus NRW, Aachen, Germany, Curator: Dr. Marcel Schumacher

14.05.2023 - 15.10.2023

Bernd und Hilla Becher, Laurenz Berges, Bernd Boor, Susanne Fasbender, Claudia Fährenkemper, Gábor Fekete, Matthias Jung, Gregor Schneider

The artist Gregor Schneider, who lives in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt, has been engaged with the mining activities in his hometown region for many years. The material for his internationally renowned long-term project, "Haus u r," in Rheydt largely comes from the dying, evacuated villages. Over the years, photographs and films were created. Gregor Schneider, as part of his artistic interests, established connections with activist initiatives, such as Fridays for Future and the "Lützerath lebt!" initiative, in the context of the documenta fifteen exhibition project "another world is possible."

In the Kunsthaus NRW, he presents for the first time as a video installation his two new films, "Sonniger Untergang" and "Kunstlandschaft" (2022). They were filmed at the edge of the demolition site with its strangely touristy-looking observation platforms. The video installation can be seen in the old brewery of the monastery complex. Additionally, we exhibit photographs from his series "Neu-Garzweiler" in the main building. These were taken in the planned settlement, built as compensation for the relocated residents, funded by compensation money.

More info: https://www.kunsthaus.nrw/ausstellung/bildwiderstand/?parent=54

The collection, Fahrbereitschaft, Berlin, Germany, Curator: Krist Gruijthuijsen

23.04.2023 - 29.10.2023

Past:

Immer feste druff, Haus Mödrath, Kerpen, Germany

17.07.2022 - 27.08.2023

More info: https://www.haus-moedrath.de/de/ausstellung_immer_feste_druff.html

How I forgot about the skin of the places 2, Inselstraße 7, Berlin, Germany, Curator: Stephanie Kloss, Peter Welz

10.02.2023 - 30.04.2023

Stillstand, Art Museum Craiova, Craiova, Romania, Curator: Anca Mureșan, Erwin Kessler

09.03.2023 - 09.04.2023

25 Jahre Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Kleve, Germany, Curator: Susane Figner, Harald Kunde, Valentina Vlašic (Cat)

23.07.2022 – 29.01.2023

Der Bau. Hommage an Kafka, Museum Villa Rot, Burgrieden–Rot, Germany, Curator: Thomas Schmäschke

12.06.2022 - 25.09.2022

erste hilfe - first aid, Hugenottenhaus, Kassel, Germany, Curator: Silvia & Lutz Frey

18.06.2022 - 24.09.2022

Paradys, Oranjewoud, Netherlands, Curator: Hans den Hartog Jager (Cat)

07.05.2022 - 14.08.2022

Macht! Licht!, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany, Curator: Andreas Beitin and Holger Broeker (Cat)

12.03.2022 – 10.07.2022

Exhibited works:

Room:

HIGH SECURITY AND ISOLATION CELL No. 4,
Rheydt 2005, room within a room, blockboards on a wooden construction, 1 lamp, 1 stainless steel toilet, 1 door, 1 mattress, grey PVC floor, walls and ceiling high glossy white, detached (338 x 220 x 230 cm (L x W x H), S 11 - 25 cm))

Video:

WHITE TORTURE 2005 - today
HDV 19 min. 49 sec.
© Gregor Schneider

IN THE MEDIA

• Schneider, Anette, Wo Licht ist, ist auch Schatten, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 12th March 2022, 5:31min.
• Wiechers, Janek, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg beleuchtet die Ambivalenz des Lichts, NDR, 12th March 2022, 2:46min.
• n/a, Power! Light! (Germ. Macht! Licht!), e-flux (online), 16th March 2022

More info: https://www.kunstmuseum.de

Nation, Narration, Narcosis, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany, Curator: Anna-Catharina Gebbers

28.11.2021 - 03.07.2022

another world is possible, Glasshouse k.format, Kassel, Germany

18.06.2022 - 1.07.2022

Rhenish Lignite Mining Area (Rheinisches Braunkohlerevier) 2022
© Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn

Gemeinsam mit internationalen Künstler*innen eröffnen Fridays for Future und die Initiative 'Lützerath Lebt!' zum Auftakt der documenta fifteen am 18.06. die Ausstellung 'Another World Is Possible'. Im Glaspavillon des k.format Kollektivs in Kassel zeigen sie zwei Wochen lang Kunst mit Fokus auf das unmittelbar vom Tagebau bedrohte Dorf Lützerath - bevor dieses im Herbst den Abrissarbeiten des Kohlekonzerns RWEs ausgesetzt ist. Darüber hinaus veranstalten die Aktivist*innen im Juli vier Vorträge im ruruhaus, dem zentralen Begegnungsort der documenta.

Auch der Künstler Gregor Schneider beteiligt sich mit seinen Arbeiten an der Ausstellung. Aufgewachsen am Rande des Braunkohletagebaus in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt, beschäftigt er sich bereits jahrzehntelang künstlerisch mit dem Rheinischen Braunkohlerevier.
Seine Ausflüge in die sterbenden Dörfern dokumentierte er fotografisch und filmisch. Er besuchte einquartierte Flüchtlinge in den sterbenden Dörfern, die nicht mehr auf aktuellen Straßenkarten verzeichnet waren. Er hielt die Umbettung von einem Friedhof fest, fotografierte Reste archäologischer Funde und hielt die Zerstörung der Natur fest. Es entstanden später Video-Kamerafahrten durch die unbewohnten „Geister-Dörfer“. Er begann Materialen aus einzelnen Häusern auszubauen um diese in sein sogenanntes Haus u r (1985-heute) einzubauen. Die ausgebauten Türen, Fenster und Böden wurden wieder zu ganzen Räumen. Schneider sagt: Ohne das Material aus den sterbenden Dörfern hätte ich das sogenannte Haus u r vermutlich nie bauen können. An der Arbeitsweise Räume zu erhalten und zu recyceln halte ich bis heute fest.
Dabei wurde das Haus u r für Gregor Schneider ein Ort des Rückzuges, dem privaten Entzuges, der Isolation und dem Verlust des Vertrautem.

1990 solidarisierte er sich künstlerisch mit dem Ort Garzweiler. Er realisierte die Unbekannte Arbeit im verschwundenen Dorf Garzweiler [https://www.gregor-schneider.de/places/1990garzweiler/pages/1990-91-garzweiler-01.htm]. Eine Arbeit die mit dem Dorf Garzweiler verschwunden ist.
In 2007 fand er ein Kinderzimmer in einem verlassenen Haus, welches ihn zu dem Raum KINDERZIMMER 2008 [https://www.gregor-schneider.de/places/2011madrid/pages/20111028-centro-de-arte-madrid-16.htm] inspirierte. Ein pink gestrichenes Zimmer mit einer pinken Matratze auf dem Boden. Später durchstößt Schneider diesen Raum mit einem übergroßen Wasserrohr. Schneider sagt: Solche großen Rohre liegen hier in der Nachbarschaft um das Grundwasser abzupumpen.
Der temporäre Erweiterungsbau END 2008 [https://www.gregor-schneider.de/places/2008mgladbach/pages/20081108-museum-abteiberg-mgladbach-001.htm] (Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach) war für Schneider auch ein Kommentar zum verdrängten Braunkohleloch vor der Haustüre Mönchengladbachs. Gregor Schneider konfrontiert die Mönchengladbacher in der Innenstadt mit einen schwarzen Loch. In diesem schwarzen Abgrund stießen die Besucher auch auf ausgebaute Räume aus den sterbenden Dörfern.

2010 baute Gregor Schneider 10 Meter der Marienstrasse [https://www.gregor-schneider.de/places/2010dueren/pages/20100627-hoesch-museum-dueren-03.htm] aus um diese Straße als letztes Überbleibsel einer verloren Ortschaft des Braunkohletagebaus bleibend zu erhalten.

Seid 2022 filmt Schneider Sonnenuntergänge (Sonniger Untergang, Rheinisches Braunkohlerevier 2022 [Sonniger Untergang & Kunstlandschaft]) vor der despotischen Kulisse des Rheinischen Braunkohlereviers.

Die Aktionsgruppe zur Ausstellung ist eine Gruppierung aus Fridays for Future, Lützerath Lebt!, Studierenden der Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Gregor Schneider, und weiteren internationalen Künstler*innen und Kollektiven, die sich zum Ziel gesetzt hat, die Kunst als Verbündete im Kampf gegen die Klimakrise zu gewinnen.

Mariesol Kleff für Fridays for Future

Kontakt
documenta@fridaysforfuture.de / documenta@fridaysforfuture.is
www.fridaysforfuture.de
+49 163 743 5791 (Telefonate, SMS, Signal, Telegram, Whatsapp)

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Liste der ausstellenden Künstler*innen und Kollektive:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18I8-5u4o5CGVQ9dFl6THr7C4wWZ-I_8nniDKU2jDkUNo/edit

More infos:
“Another World Is Possible” auf der Webseite des ruruHauses:
https://ruruhaus.de/another-world-is-possible/

@fridaysforfuture.de
@documentafifteen
@k.format
@ga_ea_collective
@lützilebt
@knstkdmdssldrf

A Century of the Artist’s Studio 1920 – 2020, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Great Britain, Curator: Iwona Blazwick, Dawn Ades, Inês Costa, Richard Dyer, Hammad Nasar, Candy Stobbs (Cat)

24.02.2022 – 5.06.2022

Exhibited works:

Video:

Haus u r, Rheydt 1985 – today
The one video includes the following chapters:
- Habe vergessen, worauf ich warte, 1995
- u r 1, u 14, Schlafen, 1988
- u r 10, Vorhang 1, 1993
- u r 19 A, Liebeslaube, 1995
- Nacht-video, 1996

VHS 29 min. 33 sec.
© Gregor Schneider

IN THE MEDIA

• Van Caesbroeck, Joke, N. Schmidt, Pferdegasse 18, 48143 Münster Gregor Schneider, 2017, De Standaard (online), 5th March 2022
• Kent, Sarah, A Century of the Artist's Studio, Whitechapel Gallery review - a voyeur's delight, The Arts Desk (online), 2nd March 2022
• Cumming, Laura, A Century of the Artist’s Studio: 1920-2020 review – congealing palettes, fading light and magic, The Guardian (online), 20th February 2022

More info: https://www.whitechapelgallery.org

Why can’t we live together, Kunstmuseum Marburg, Marburg, Germany, Curator: F. Peters-Messer

25.03.2022 - 19.05.2022

werden. From Michelangelo to →, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck, Austria, Curator: Peter Assmann & Co. (Cat)

02.12.2021 - 18.04.2022

Exhibited works:

Sculpture:

KOLKATA GODDESS VI
Kolkata 2011, bamboo, straw, Hooghly River sludge, leftovers of fabric and paint

Video:

It's all Rheydt
HDV 31 min. 23 sec.
© Gregor Schneider

More info: https://www.tiroler-landesmuseen.at

Book presentation: GREGOR SCHNEIDER

8.04.2022 | 4:00 pm

Christian Mosar, director of Konschthal Esch, invites to a book presentation of Gregor Schneider with Gregor Schneider and Raimund Stecker on April 8, 4 pm in Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.

Moderatorin: Sabine Maria Schmidt.

Pages: 112
Size: 205 x 135 mm.
Edited: Raimund Stecker, Esch 2021
Text: Raimund Stecker
ISBN: 978-3-95679-635-7

More info: https://www.sternberg-press.com

GREGOR SCHNEIDER EGO-TUNNEL, Konschthal Esch, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, Curator: Christian Mosar (Solo) (Cat)

02.10.2021 - 09.01.2022

IN THE MEDIA

• Briegleb, Till, Expeditionen ins Möbelhaus, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2nd January 2022
• Trinks, Stefan, Die Einsamkeit der Wachsfrüchte, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 27th December 2021, Page 13
• Gabi Peters & Dirk Richerdt, Joseph Goebbels' Geburtshaus wiederentdeckt, Rheinische Post (online), 7th November 2014
• Boxler, Marcus, Unausgesprochene Dinge treiben mich um, Monopol (Magazine), 21st October 2021
• Siemes, Christof, Ich habe es mir selber eingebrockt, Die Zeit, 14th October 2021, Page 55
• Tornau, O., Kulturhauptstadt: Gregor Schneider in Esch-sur-Alzette, Arte, 6th October 2021, 2:04min.
• W. Kuhn, Thomas, Gregor Schneider Ego-Tunnel, Kunstforum No. 278 (Magazine), October 2021

NOTHINGTOSEENESS – LEERE/WEIß/STILLE, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany

15.09.2021 - 12.12.2021

More info: https://www.adk.de

BLACK LIGHTNING, Triennale Brugge 2021, Brugge, Belgium

08.05.2021 - 24.10.2021

END
Mönchengladbach 2008, mixed media (14x14x66m (WxHxL)), Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany
© Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn

More info: www.triennalebrugge.be

More info: https://www.triennalebrugge.be

N. Schmidt, ART CITY Bologna 2021, Ex Gam, Bologna, Italy (Solo)

06.05.2021 - 16.05.2021

Photo: LIVING ROOM (with view of the kitchen)
life action, London 2004, room within a room, fiberboards on a wooden construction, 1 door, 1 window, 1 lamp, 1 radiator, 1 fireplace, 2 cupboards, 2 sofas, 2 tables, 1 TV, walls and ceiling wallpaper, carpet on the ground, detached (inside: 310 x 290 x 235 cm (L x W x H), S 1,2 - 10 cm), DIE FAMILIE SCHNEIDER, Walden Street No. 16, London, Great Britain
© Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn

More info: agenda.comune.bologna.it

Tote Räume / Dead Spaces, West Den Haag (former American Embassy), Den Haag, Netherlands, Curator: Marie-José Sondeijker, Text: Ory Dessau

29.08.2020 - 11.04.2021

Welcome, West is open to the public. Please note that due to current regulations related to the coronavirus, all visitors are required to reserve a time slot for their visit.

Please make your reservation here.

Tote Räume / Dead Spaces
West Den Haag (former American Embassy), Den Haag, Netherlands
© Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn

West Den Haag is thrilled to announce Tote Räume, Gregor Schneider‘s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands. Acknowledged as a groundbreaking artistic proposition, Schneider’s work can be regarded also as prophetic in a time of mandatory social distancing since it is based on mechanisms of physical isolation. Unfolding a sequence of rooms, sculptures, human figures, photos and videos spanning four decades of radical art making, the exhibition is arranged in response to, and exchange with, the original function of its building as the U.S. Embassy in the Netherlands from 1959 until 2018.

A clear example to this exchange is the ‘Interrogation Room’ – a pristine room replicating one of the prison cell modules in Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, the U.S. detention facility located on Cuba’s southeastern coast. When incorporated into the setting of West Den Haag ‘Interrogation Room’ exceeds the boundaries of the aesthetic field and acquires the status of a real authoritarian space, outlining the exercise of power over the visitors and the potential violation of their bodily sovereignty.
Also included in the current sequence is ‘Cold Storage Cell’, which joins ‘Interrogation Room’ to politically contextualize Schneider’s continuous experiments in sensory deprivation and practices of stealth interrogation and clean torture, intermittently conducted throughout his entire oeuvre.
With the display of ‘Cryo-Tank Phoenix 3’ Schneider’s conception of sealed-off spaces extends beyond the political-jurisdictional framework provided by West Den Haag and obtains a metaphysical sense, turning every site in which it emerges into an intermediary zone situated between life and death, between this world and the world to come. A separate section in the exhibition is dedicated to ‘Geburtshaus Goebbels’, which involves the actual building in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt where Joseph Goebbels—the Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany—was born. In ‘Geburtshaus Goebbels’ Schneider traces the roots of Nazi history almost literally, uncovering the physical foundations of Goebbels’ birthplace—the origins of his origins. Within Schneider’s universe ‘Geburtshaus Goebbels’ is also a follower of ‘Haus u r’, the artist’s own site of origin, standing a short distance away from it. ‘Haus u r’ is the name Schneider gave to the abandoned residential building, which he occupies since 1985, all the while ceaselessly reconstructing its inner structure as an idiosyncratic typology of visceral rooms built inside the house’s preexisting rooms (with windows in front of windows, walls in front of walls, etc.). Being realized through a process of self-consuming duplication—whereby each room is also the concealed room into which it was inserted, and the space—the difference—between them—makes ‘Haus u r’ an enduring experience of cognitive dissonance in relation to which presence and absence, construction and elimination, are no longer distinguishable from one another.

In the context of the exhibition a series of performances will be staged specifically for the occasion. Additionally to the project ‘Tote Räume’ West will organise an international symposium in November of this year. With the working title: ‘Gregor Schneider: Kunst im Kopf’.

Gregor Schneider (Germany, 1969) is cosidered one of the most influential artists of the last three decades. Since the end of the 1990s Schneider has been presenting solo exhibitions in leading museums around the world, including, among many others, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, Museun of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, Museo d’Arte Contemporena Roma. In 2001 Schneider won the Golden Lion award in the Venice Biennale of Art, and from then on his work is the subject of worldwide discussions and controversies. Schneider’s practice is an intersection between architecture, sculpture, and performance, intervening in the fabric of material, social and historical reality.

This project is supported by the Ministry of Education, Cultural Affairs and Science, the city of The Hague, Mondriaan Foundation and the Goethe-Institut.

More info: http://www.westdenhaag.nl/exhibitions/20_06_Gregor_Schneider

IN THE MEDIA

• Наталия Королева, Скандальные проекты Грегора Шнайдера, Deutsche Welle, 19th November 2020
• Raimund Stecker, Psychohäuser unseres Inneren, Frankfurter Allgemeine, 11th October 2020
• Maartje Wortel, Immer geradeaus de angst tegemoet — Gregor Schneider, Mister Motley, 9th October 2020
• Paul Kuipers, Van bezoeker tot gevangene: Breuer’s Amerikaanse ambassade revisited met Gregor Schneider, Archined, 8th October 2020
• Machteld Leij, Weinig, en toch zo ongemakkelijk. Gregor Schneider in West Den Haag, HART Magazine, 6th October 2020
• Lucette ter Borg, In het universum van Gregor Scheider bestaat geen onschuld, NRC Handelsblad, 1st October 2020
• Marie Civikov, Gregor Schneider / Tote Räume, Jegens & Tevens, 29th September 2020
• Mieke Rijnders, Gregor Schneider — Tote Räume, Witte Raaf, 21st September 2020
• Alan Quireyns, Waar is hier de uitgang?, Metropolis M, 21st September 2020
• George Vermij, De Schuldige Kamers van Gregor Schneider, Den Haag Centraal, 10th September 2020
• Carné van den Brink, Wat het daglicht niet verdragen kan, NPO Radio 1, 6th September 2020
• Eline van der Haak, Beklemmende kamers, Den Haag Centraal, 3rd September 2020
• Anna van Leeuwen, Claustrofilie, Volkskrant, 1st September 2020
• Paola van de Velde, Kamers bouwen in kamers, als kunst, Telegraaf, 1st September 2020
• Sandra Smallenburg, Happy accidents en andere exposities, NRC, 27th August 2020
• Hans den Hartog Jager, Gregor Schneider heeft een huis, en mondkapjes, NRC, 9th April 2020

Encounter: Gregor Schneider

Video link: https://player.vimeo.com/video/468175163

Encounter
Gregor Schneider & Ory Dessau

Lockdown with Gregor Schneider

I. Intro, office & Storage I

Video link: https://player.vimeo.com/video/418024325

II. Car ride & big storage

Video link: https://player.vimeo.com/video/418025376

III. Goebbels birth house

Video link: https://player.vimeo.com/video/418027290

IV. House u r + mini interview

Video link: https://player.vimeo.com/video/418029020

KREUZWEG (based on an idea for Berlin in 2006), St. Matthäus-Kirche, Berlin, Germany, Curator: Pastor Hannes Langbein (Solo)

19.02.2021 - 02.04.2021

KREUZWEG / WAY OF THE CROSS (based on an idea for Berlin in 2006), Logroño 2020
Foto: Josema Cutillas
© Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn / Goethe Institut Madrid

Kreuzweg (Way of the Cross) is a dark black passageway in the shape of a cross. The cross-shaped structure has four openings, one in each of its ends, through which the viewer can enter and exit. The shape of the cross is fully obtainable only from an aerial, God-like point of view. Upon entering the passageway, the viewer loses the formal contour of the structure, as the contour of his/her own body becomes blurred, melting into the indefinite blackness surrounding it, in which the distinction between one’s own outer/physical and inner/psychological space is no longer clear.

Obviously, Kreuzweg bears a direct reference to the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Rather than merely formal or iconographic, the reference to the Crucifixion is also experiential. Kreuzweg stages a theatrical rite of passage, a liminal scenography that strips viewing subjects walking through the passageway of their identities and everyday concepts of time and place, after which they are born again, reemerging into a world of a higher order juxtaposing terminality with resurrection.

Kreuzweg is the current culmination of the redemptive theological thread that runs through Schneider’s oeuvre. It is the explicit conclusion of many earlier works. One example of which is CUBE (2005-07). Schneider’s CUBE is a gigantic cubic outdoor structure covered in black cloth, seemingly replicating Islam’s holy edifice of the Kaaba. Formally, a flattened cube results in a cross. In this sense, Kreuzweg is the spatialization of CUBE after it was flattened. The geometrical link between the two works enables Schneider to incorporate CUBE’s scenario of circumambulating a black void into the immersive walked-through black void of Kreuzweg.

… In 2008 CUBE became END: a sixty-six-meter-long dark passageway which Schneider constructed outside Abteiberg Museum in Mönchengladbach. To enter the dark passageway, the viewer had to climb a small ladder and pass through a black square opening. At the end of the passageway, along which one’s own orientation and bodily integrity were being shaken, was a shaft leading the viewer to an underground dark space. The sole way out of the dark underground space was an elevator which carried the viewer to the museum’s illuminated collection galleries on the second floor, as if launching him or her from the domain of black death into the white territory of life after death.

Schneider’s interest in the hereafter can also be traced in his Cryo-Tank Phoenix (2006). A sealed cylindrical tank made of electro-polished stainless steel Cryo-Tank Phoenix was first presented on 02.11.06–the Christian Day of the Dead–at St Peter’s Church, Cologne. Its initial religious backdrop established a fundamental connection between the cryonic vision of preserving dead bodies in low temperature until wishful revivification, the story of Christ’s resurrection, and the anticipated event of his Second Coming. It marked the appearance of Cryo-Tank Phoenix in affinity to the apocalyptic-eschatological circumstances of the hereafter, turning every site in which it emerges into an intermediary zone situated between life and death, between this world and the world to come.

An excerpt from “Gregor Schneider and the Architecture of the Afterlife,” a text by Ory Dessau.

More info: https://www.stiftung-stmatthaeus.de

Time Present, Photography from the Deutsche Bank Collection, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, Germany

10.06.2020 - 22.02.2021

STERBERAUM, Staatstheater Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany (Solo)

28.01.2021, 9:00 pm – 31.01.2021, 10:30 pm (LIVE STREAM)

Staatstheater Darmstadt, Darmstadt 2021
© Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn

NEWSPAPER

• n/a, Installation Sterberaum: Live-Stream nonstop zur Pandemie, dpa, 28th January 2021
• n/a, Installation Sterberaum: Live-Stream nonstop zur Pandemie, Welt (online), 28th January 2021
• n/a, Sterberaum im Live-Stream, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online), 28th January 2021
• n/a, Gregor Schneiders Sterberaum im Live-Stream. Was es heißt, ein Mensch zu sein, Monopol (online), 28th January 2021
• n/a, Gedenken an die Corona-Toten: Gregor Schneiders Sterberaum im Live-Stream, Kunstforum (online), 28th January 2021
• Rieger, Birgit, Sterberaum als Live-Stream, Der Tagesspiegel (online), 29th January 2021
• Krämer-Alig, Annette, Trauer muss ihren Raum haben, Darmstädter Echo, 29th January 2021
• Kralapp, Carolin, Auf einmal ist es still. Das Staatstheater Darmstadt zeigt Gregor Schneiders Sterberaum im Livestream, Gallerytalk.net (online), 30th January 2021
• Hierholzer, Michael, Der maximale Abstand, Frankfurter Allgemein Zeitung, 30th January 2021, Page 50
• Strauss, Simon, Wie ein Säulenheiliger unserer Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online), 30th January 2021
• Strauss, Simon, Bleiben und Stille bewahren, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 30th January 2021, Page 12
• Sojitrawalla, Shirin, Ist da jemand?, Nachtkritik.de (online), 31st January 2021
• von Sternburg, Judith, Exerzitium, Frankfurter Rundschau (online), 31st January 2021
• Holze, Guido, Lippen schweigen, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 1st February 2021
• Lorch, Catrin, Zum Sterben schön, Süddeutsche Zeitung (online), 2nd February 2021
• Goldmann, A. J., Theaters Go Digital to Talk About Life (and Death) in the Pandemic, The New York Times (online), 11th February 2021

RADIO

• n/a, Kunstprojekt Sterberaum im Livestream: Totengedenken im Staatstheater Darmstadt, SWR2 Kultur aktuell, SWR2, 28th January 2021
• Christophersen, Claudia, Konfrontiert mit dem Tod: Gregor Schneiders Sterberaum, NDR Kultur, NDR, 11th February 2021

TV

• Edinger, Kerstin, Gregor Schneiders Sterberaum, Kulturzeit, 3sat, 29th January 2021

More info: https://www.staatstheater-darmstadt.de/veranstaltungen/sterberaum.897