CORONA UPDATES:

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

29.08.2020 - 31.01.2021

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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

Current:

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

10.06.2020 - 08.02.2021