Gregor Schneider was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2001 for his infamous work ‘Totes Haus u r,’ exhibited at the German Pavilion, Schneider has earned a reputation as an outstanding artist and as the creator of an utterly baffling oeuvre.
Read MoreIn 2007 Schneider built the confronting Kaldor Public Art Project, 21 beach cells, which created a dominating presence on Bondi Beach, Sydney. Gregor Schneider also installed ‘Basement Keller Haus u r’ 1985 – 2012 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The eleven-by-four-metre room shipped from Rheydt, was carefully inserted into the architectural fabric of the Gallery. A suite of photographs documenting ‘Totes Haus u r’ accompanies his work at the museum.
The provocative artist is well known for the sensory aspects of his work. Since 1985 he has been rebuilding the interior spaces of his home in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt, Germany. As walls are removed or ceilings lowered, Schneider’s spatial incursions create a sense of claustrophobia. Such feelings of unease are heightened when the artist includes in the work lifeless, sculptural bodies covered in plastic or real people repeatedly performing everyday tasks. His work consistently features hollow rooms, haunting spaces and dark mausoleums. The original work ‘Haus u r’ 1985 –now, is the foundation for the building work that he produces for exhibition purposes.
Schneider’s fascination with darkened, asphyxiation rooms has become an art genre in itself. His work alludes gruesomely to sex, death and suffering. “One builds what one no longer knows”, he states, and his work exemplifies the tricks that the human mind can play when stretched far beyond the normal. Schneider wants his work to help us to reflect upon and overcome our worst nightmares. That these fetid rooms have become highly sought after by collectors and museums certainly reveals how compelling we find the most disquieting aspects of the human condition. In 2008 Schneider became embroiled in controversy after saying he wanted to create a space in a museum in which people could die. His argument was that society’s horror of death was so acute that we prefer to ignore it, leaving people to die in the clinical impersonality of a hospital rather than somewhere beautiful. His impassioned response reflected on the endemic cruelty in our society that leads us to blatantly disregard our final act.
Text courtesy Dominik Mersch Gallery.
