FORT
The Golden Rule

Jun 4th, 2010
Galerie Lena Brüning, Berlin

Copyright Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf; Photo René Arnold
Copyright Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf; Photo René Arnold

The gallery space is empty; simply filled with the sounds of a reoccuring song; School by Supertramp. Outside, next to a construction side, three wheelbarrows from the manufacturer FORT stand piled up. Along with a small poster reading THE GOLDEN RULE, which hangs on the house wall across the street these subtle changes of the outdoor space mark the stage of the happening that is about to occur.

While standing in the gallery and waiting for something to happen, one stops short at the glance of some of the passersby, finding something slightly irritating about their appearance although they seem plausible parts of the everyday streetscape.
A young man carries a cactus, a girl in white summer dress rides a bike with an old, bearded man sitting on her pannier rack. A buissiness man in dark suit hushes home from work in a hectic talk on the phone, a group of three soccer players jogg along the street. All situations, seem normal but irritate in their compaction. A young man strolls along the road, when suddenly he stops and in a struggeling gesture all of a sudden runs back in the opposite direction. His action fits precisely into the rise of tension at the concurrent point of the song. The three artists appear on the opposite side of the road, wearing grey working overalls , carrying a ladder and a bucket. They stop in front of the housewall, plaster the same poster over the already existing one and disappear in the backyard.

With every song loop the choreography of the passersby reoccurs exacty. The longer it continues, the more persons become visible as part of this repetitive composition: The woman with two shopping bags, The man eating an ice cream cone, the limping man with the Metallica T-Shirt, a girl in black who drags a couple of enormous black paper rolls that remind of the invitation cards laying on the window sill of the gallery. The only consistend element: Two little girls in the far background of the happening sitting on a bench- literally frozen in motion- seem to be unaffected by the rapid movement around them and remain in stillness throughout the whole time.

Dizzy from the repetition of the music, it seems the perception of the events becomes sharper. One searches for variations, disturbing factors and coolidations with „real“ passersby. Even after the Performance is over, it is hard to leave behind the adopted view. With open eyes even the way home on the subway becomes a little secret sceenplay allied to the work of FORT.

Sabrina Schleicher

About FORT

FORT consists of Alberta Niemann and Jenny Kropp. Since 2008 they create installations, performances and video installations (until 2013 with Anna Jandt).

Related Exhibition