Where I come from people are always greeted with bread and salt. This is how the AutoKonßtrukSchön exhibit greets as well. A huge brown bread cut into pieces and a bowl of salt. And one immediately feels at home. A newly built home, that is. The exhibition is constructed in an artistic communion, as a shared space for the authors and viewers.
 

AutoKonßtrukSchön contains a number of installations and multimedia pieces comfortably dispersed in both the bigger and the smaller room of the hosting gallery Arratia Beer. The art presented speaks about the accessibility of what is aesthetic. Beautifully combined and arranged, the different pieces fit with an ease unusual for such diverse work: some already made, others made ex-profeso, discussing ideas on which happened only a few months before the show.
 

There is a lot to hear at this exhibition if you care to take the neatly hung headphones and listen. Do not miss out on going into the voice-haunted wooden cabin. Yes, one is indeed allowed to stay inside as long as they wish.
 

We wanted to build a…
 

Continue into the smaller room and keep on listening to the “Arbeit und Freizeit/Fiesta y Ensayo” piece by Alina Rojas and Daniel Kötter. Do not forget to look at the Libretto that the authors have provided to accompany the videos showing simultaneously on the two big screens. I sat on the floor glued to the parallel spins of labour and joy. Being fluent in Spanish riveted me to the right screen, the one telling the story in Spanish while the left screen is left to the German speakers. A recurring topic is what it means to be an artist. “I am not an artist. I feel I miss creativity.” or “Being an artist is a profession.”

 

One wonders what the concrete spilling out of two carton boxes was meant to build. The videos show how the piece that includes the concrete spill was produced. Its author shares being fascinated by “the structures that remain as a result of an action”.
 

Constructing and de-constructing
 

While I was contemplating the girl who dances alone on a small screen in the bigger exhibition room, one of the artists came in to make sure her work will be well preserved. “It is paper so it needs to be carefully maintained”, she told me. This keeps me thinking about the fragility of the artwork. AutoKonßtrukSchön strikes with its affectionate approach. It constructs, de-constructs and measures something that is fragile and intangible – collaboration in art.

 

• Arratia Beer “AutoKonßtrukSchön” March 9th – April 7th, 2012 Tue-Sat 12pm–6pm