Gregor Schneider
In his artistic practice, Gregor Schneider (born in Rheydt in 1969) uses built spaces, as places of personal and historical experience, as his starting point. Schneider has been exploring the transformation of architectural environments since the 1980s. He takes buildings and rooms out of context, duplicates them, reproduces them in other locations, or redesigns their interiors. His work is known for depicting an unsettling image of normality. Through nested and interlaced arrangements, his works confront visitors with the psychological dimensions of architectural structures.
artwork
Suppe auslöffeln, Geburtshaus Goebbels (Spooning Soup, Birthplace Joseph Goebbels), Odenkirchener Str. 202, Rheydt, 2014
Videos and objects, dimensions variable
Gregor Schneider’s contribution to the exhibition is part of his ongoing focus on the house where Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was born, in the Rheydt district of Mönchengladbach. The artist, who was raised in the same urban district, found and bought the house and some of its furnishings. He made it public and produced a 3D-scan of the entire building. Furthermore, he documented in painstaking detail how he stayed there himself and subsequently gutted the interiors, which he presented elsewhere as ruins. Alongside documentary footage of his artistic appropriation of the residence, Schneider also exhibits silicone-dipped documents featuring right-wing nationalist ideology that he found in the house. Starting with Goebbels’ normal family and living environment, Schneider tries to find clues to the emergence of his hostile world view. By conveying theseideas into space and opening up the direct experience of the architecture, he draws the viewer’s attention to the function and importance of seemingly banal built environments. At the same time, he demands that society takes responsibility by deliberately considering how to deal with historically burdened places.
Gregor Schneider
In his artistic practice, Gregor Schneider (born in Rheydt in 1969) uses built spaces, as places of personal and historical experience, as his starting point. Schneider has been exploring the transformation of architectural environments since the 1980s. He takes buildings and rooms out of context, duplicates them, reproduces them in other locations, or redesigns their interiors. His work is known for depicting an unsettling image of normality. Through nested and interlaced arrangements, his works confront visitors with the psychological dimensions of architectural structures.
artwork
Suppe auslöffeln, Geburtshaus Goebbels (Spooning Soup, Birthplace Joseph Goebbels), Odenkirchener Str. 202, Rheydt, 2014
Videos and objects, dimensions variable
Gregor Schneider’s contribution to the exhibition is part of his ongoing focus on the house where Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was born, in the Rheydt district of Mönchengladbach. The artist, who was raised in the same urban district, found and bought the house and some of its furnishings. He made it public and produced a 3D-scan of the entire building. Furthermore, he documented in painstaking detail how he stayed there himself and subsequently gutted the interiors, which he presented elsewhere as ruins. Alongside documentary footage of his artistic appropriation of the residence, Schneider also exhibits silicone-dipped documents featuring right-wing nationalist ideology that he found in the house. Starting with Goebbels’ normal family and living environment, Schneider tries to find clues to the emergence of his hostile world view. By conveying theseideas into space and opening up the direct experience of the architecture, he draws the viewer’s attention to the function and importance of seemingly banal built environments. At the same time, he demands that society takes responsibility by deliberately considering how to deal with historically burdened places.