48 Hours Survival for Germany Christoph Schlingensief Moma PS1
Christoph Schlingensief My Felt, My Fat, My Hare – 48 Hours Survival for Germany Christoph Schlingensief MoMA PS1, March 09, 2014 - August, 2014 (documenta X, Kassel, 1997) Starting in the mid-1990s, Schlingensief began to explore the possibility of relocating theater works and actions outside of traditional stages. Increasingly, his theater productions and actions became more and more politicized. Presented as part of the contemporary art exhibition documenta X (1997) in Kassel, My Felt, My Fat, My Hare, successfully moved beyond the confines of an actual theater. Schlingensief and his ensemble, which was comprised of both professional and amateur artists, barricaded themselves in a public exhibition space in the Orangery of the celebrated Auepark in Kassel. Tasks such as sleeping, washing and cooking were all staged as performances and the audience was given the option of watching or joining in. Schlingensief passed out flyers asking people to imagine Germany as a gigantic theater performance with Chancellor Helmut Kohl as its director. While the actors and the audience were separated by a pile of sandbags, Schlingensief encouraged audience members to climb over them or to move them aside in order to literally and symbolically remove any barrier between art and observation. Shifting between a rehearsed script and improvisation, Schlingensief and his ensemble variously sang about the all too recent death of Lady Diana, who had died earlier that day, threatened to destroy artworks, and posted a banner emblazoned with the words, “Kill Helmut Kohl,” an action that led to his arrest and brief imprisonment. The exhibit features an excerpt of the documentation of My Felt, My Fat, My Hare (Germany 1997, 9 minutes, 57 seconds, originally 90 minutes), courtesy Akademie der Kunste, Berlin/Christoph Schlingensief Archive Passion Impossible.
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