shift e.V. is pleased to present the premier in Germany of Barak Bar-Am's installation - Hebeschiebewerk. The installation consists of several elements.
by Barak Bar-Am
(conceived as a site-specific installation for Gallery Dorothea
Deimann, Basel, 1999)
shift e.V. is pleased to present
the premier in Germany of
Barak Bar-Am's installation -
Hebeschiebewerk.
The installation consists of several
elements:
'CPU ATRIUM' basic shape is that of a large simple box with
P.V.C surfaces on all 4 sides. The top has been removed to
allow us to view its inner structure. The work invites the
spectator to look from above on a group of images and
structures located in its core. This top-view, a perspective which recurs elsewhere in Bar-Am's work,
suggests an architectural frame of reference and might explain the arrangement of different elements and
their inner relationships and hierarchies. The schiffshebewerk video loop in the center is surrounded by a
structure of planes. This structure resembles a cooling apparatus and is accompanied by three electric
ventilators, all inside an 'ATRIUM BOX'.
Mediating between the work's core and its boundary is a structure that resembles the inside view of
enlarged processor.
Bar-Am suggests that this element aspires to operate like the scheme of a reactor. Several layers of
interpretation come in mind in front (or rather above) this scheme - a cybernetic versus mechanical
paradigm, or that of physiological apparatus of memory versus inner space.
'1:17 MODEL' is based on the 'Poliashuk' building, an
International Style office building, built by two architects,
Laiskowsky and Ornstein, in 1934 in the old center of Tel
Aviv. The building is characterized by a 'Mendelsohn facade'
resembling a face of a ship, which is typical to Tel Aviv's
architecture of the period.
In this work Bar-Am realizes the "Nautical" potential
embodied in the 'Mendelsohn facade'.
Here, in the showspace, this building becomes a matchbox
car, a P.V.C 1:17 scale-model train, running in circles on the
gallery floor.
The logic behind this architectural toy is that of displacement
through transformation, which in turn suggests a possible destiny of an architectural phrase from another
time and space.
'ALEXANDERPLATZ LOOP', taken by Bar-Am and projected on the near wall, shows another axis of
transformation - that of the International Style - which originated in Germany, was imported to Israel and
practiced in a pure and naive form by Tel Aviv architects, and can likewise be seen in its Bolshevik high
modernist variants, in Alexanderplaz in East Berlin.
The Tel Aviv / Berlin axis, linking naive forms and authoritarian spaces is not judgemental, it marks again a
potential of transformation of ideas and styles.
'WALL PIECE' has been created for this installation,
although it makes specific reference to its real-world display
context in Dorothea Deimann - Räume für Kunst in Basel. It
is a free standing wood and P.V.C wall construction, with
graphic elements in red, grey, black and white.
This big abstract surface borrows its color scheme and
formal vocabulary from a huge Esso oil-tanker which is
visible through the gallery's window.
The work operates at the level of displacement, transforming
the surface of this capitalist icon into other surface: such as
an indoor mural or an abstract painting. As a part of the
Hebeschiebewerk installation, this piece appears as an
anchor to an everyday, 'real' phenomenon, as a reference to
the nearby environment of an industrial river-bank Harbor.
[Text by Ohad Meromi, from the catalogue]
open from: Wed-Fri, 15:oo-19:oo
shift e.V.,
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D-10117 Berlin-Mitte,
Phone & Fax: +49-30-285 98 631