Stefan Burger

Musée du Musée de la Photographie, 2011
35mm slide projection, manfrotto tripod, silicon, metal
Dimensions variable, Site-specific installation

The installation «Musée du Musée de la Photographie» consists of two spatial units that relate to each other. In one of them a slide-projector is installed 5m (196.5 inch) high and whose remote control is incessantly pressed by a robotical finger prothesis. A coincidentally chosen order of randomly photographed motifs from sideplaces of the museum are shakily projected on to the wall of the second unit.

[Installation view Musée de l'Elysée, Musée de la Photography, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2011]

The Illusion of owning a third eye (arm), 2012
Aluminium, Wood, Plexiglas, Silicone, Paper, Fuji Instant Color Film, Inkjetprint on Paper, H660 x W450 x D150 cm

Burger's work «The illusion of owning a third eye» was developed from photographs of a scientific experiment (The illusion of owning a third arm) completed by a team of neurobiologists in Stockholms Karolinka Institute. With their experiment, the Swedish behaviour scientists could assert that the man's own «body programme» is in no way imperturbable: after a short irritation phase, test persons sitting behind a screen reacted to the brush tickling of a supposed third arm, a realistic silicon prosthesis, because they couldn't differentiate their own arm from the prosthesis. Burger developed from these confusing facts two, maybe three, groups of photographs in an architectural exhibition structure which altogether express a certain incompatibility. The main architectonic element is a long and empty structure with vertical elements to which aluminium-Plexiglas frames are hanged at a common picture-hanging height. These contain multi-layered passe-partouts, which actually frame the proposed pictures. However, after seeing the out of focus and unambitious Polaroids of hand prosthesis lying around, one suspects these to be only an artifice for the passe-partouts and the colourful polyurethane glue clusters mise en scène. There, the roles of the carrier and the carried feel like swapped. The diverse ventilation grids are a supplementary ingredient to the installation which introduce air flow into the mutual conditions' layering. With this work, Burger looks for the densified space of the Photography's physical body as well as for the mistaking potential of the carrier and the carried. He thus founds supporting structures and perception problems incoherently colliding into each other.
Alexandra Blättler, Zürich, 2012

[Installation view Kunsthalle Nuremberg, 2012]

Sabbia con Aromi, 2010/2011
Wallpaper, window grills (metal), lacquer, doormats
Dimensions variable (17 x 4m)

[Installation View Art Unlimited, Art 42 Basel, 2011]

Zeigefinger eingeklemmt im Vorstellungsklavier, 2011
Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zurich

Untitled (Grate), 2010
steel, varnish, inkjet print on doormat
Dimensions H 180 x W 190 x D 18 cm (h 70.9 x w 74.8 x d 7.1 inches)

Untitled (Ballpoint pens), 2011
C-print, framed, tripod
Dimensions H 310 x W 142 x D 7 cm (h 122 x w 55.9 x d 2.8 inches)

Untitled (Badges), 2011
baryt prints, framed
Dimensions H 52 x W 52 x D 7 cm (h 20.5 x w 20.5 inches)

[Installation views Kunstraum Walcheturm, CH]

Under the Circumstances, 2010
Fotomuseum Winterthur

o.T. (Untitled), 2010
Lambda-Print, copper, wood
Dimensions H 130 x B 219 x T 35 cm (h 51,2 x w 86,2 x d 13,8 inch)

Double Focus, Teil 1 & 2 ( halb nasse Version) (semi wet version), 2010
Mixed Media
Dimensions H 3100 x B 7500 x T 3200 cm (h 1220,5 x w 2952,8 x d 1259,8 inch)

Übungsanlage für Bildtransfer (Training complex for image- transfer), 2010
Wood, metal, cardboard, Inkjet-print
Dimensions H 2500 x B 5000 x T 2200 cm (h 984,3 x w 1968,5 x d 866,1 inch)

[Installation Fotomuseum Winterthur]

Abstraction and mimesis I, 2007
Video installation
7 min 10 sec, loop

[Abstraction and mimesis I]

Analogue monument, 2008
16 mm projection, Ilfordumbrella, Manfrotto tripods, halogen lamps
variable dimensions; unique piece

The installation «Analogue monument» is like an exemplary retraining project for the process of analogue photography. A 16 mm film shows the demolition of the Agfa headquarters in Munich in 2008. Docked onto the projector motor, a 1980s Ilford promotional umbrella revolves, illuminated by a halogen spot, which casts a play of light on to the wall.

[-]

Breeding device for small groups in the art system, 2009
Wood, lacquer, bronze, linen, (each) 106 x 40 x 41 cm

«Breeding device for small groups in the art system» was «occupied» by gallery staff for the two-month duration of the exhibition at Galerie Freymond Guth & Co. Fine Arts. The result was a distinct flattening of the seating cushions. The cushion fixed to the chair has an opening at the side for any material to be inserted. The zipper had a bronze cast of an avocado, filled with glass beads, as an opener, which was meant to remind the gallery staff of the relevant values whenever they used it.

[-]

Open / Closed, 2010
Metal, Lambda-print on aluminium, framed, lacquer, 350 x 200 x 30 cm

«Open / Closed» was created in 2010 based on two postcards (from on a 1950s photograph by Hans Schönwetter) showing the Kunsthaus Glarus with a closed and an open skylight, respectively. In similar vein, the pulley mechanism for operating the skylight was extended into the exhibition space. Visitors could choose to participate by changing the angle at which the skylight was tilted.

[-]

Untitled (Gates of Hell - wastewater use), 2008
intervention

For the intervention «Untitled (Gates of Hell - wastewater use)» the existing infrastructure of the Kunsthaus Zürich was used to describe a drainage along the institutional sidelines of a museum. With the restoration of Auguste Rodin's «Gates of Hell» in 2007, a rainwater gully was affixed at the top of the bronze sculpture with a rainwater drainpipe at the side. This existing situation was then extended to include a 200-litre rain vat. The rainwater collected in the vat was used every Wednesday at 11 a.m. during exhibition hours by the museum's own cleaning staff, to clean the floor of the Joseph Beuys «Olivestone» room. The cleaning water was then poured into a canalisation of the Kunsthaus Zürich inner courtyard.

[-]

Irene La Mostra Affondabile / The Sinkable Show, 2010
Instituto Svizzero Venezia, Venice, IT

Prova di carico improvvisato» (Improvised stress test), 2010
Inkjet-print, plasterboard, wood, metal, sandbags, 400 x 560 x 100 cm

For «Prova di carico improvvisato» a team of workers put up a freestanding wall in the exhibition space. A section of the wall was then removed and subjected to a stress test using the workers' own body weight. The situation of this improvised stress test was photographed and, later, once the piece of wall had been re-incorporated into the wall, it was applied to the wall as photographic wallpaper on a scale of 1:1. An aperture in the mural provided access to the rear of the installation.

Prova di carico improvvisato (Improvised stress test),
initial situation Improvised stress test on a reinforced concrete slab of Pier Luigi Nervi's concrete vessel «Irene», built in the 1940s

Spazzolino da denti (Toothbrush), 2010
Lambda-print on aluminium, framed, lacquer, 139 x 110 cm

Tintura per capelli (Hair lotion), 2010
Lambda-print on aluminium, framed, 155 x 123 cm

Inform, 2010
Lambda-print on aluminium, framed, lacquer, 100 x 71 cm

Inform is a hairstyling mousse (similar to the legendary Confusion Control shampoo) that was applied to the scalp and said to penetrate the skull.

Colonna dell'infamia (Pillar of shame), 2010
Concrete, steel, anchor chain, anti-rust lacquer, sticky tape, wood, inkjet-print on hand-made paper, 180 x 400 x 140 cm

The «Colonna dell'infamia» was installed in a Venice fish market in the 14th century in memory of the following incident. A group of revolutionaries had plotted to overthrow the Doge. On the way, they passed by the fish market, where a woman on the first floor dropped her stone mortar, which struck one of the revolutionaries on the head, killing him and thereby thwarting the coup. Originally fixed to a concrete base with an iron support, the «Colonna dell'infamia» eventually disappeared from its place in the fish market.

[-]

4'33'' (Dormicum I.V.), 2009
HD-video 7 min 30 sec

In the experiment «4'33'' (Dormicum I.V.)» the so-called «silent piece» by John Cage is performed under the influence of a high dose of the sedative Dormicum (active ingredient Midazolam).

Mongrafie: Stefan Burger -
sehr sehr dünne suppe / very very thin soup
Herausgegeben von Sabine Schaschl (Kunsthaus Baselland) und Urs Stahel (Fotomuseum Winterthur). Mit Essays von Urs Stahel, Georg Winter, Burkhard Meltzer und einem Interview zwischen Sabine Schaschl und Stefan Burger. 236 Seiten, ca. 150 meist farbige Abbildungen, in deutscher und englischer Sprache, erschienen im Christoph Merian Verlag (Basel), Buchkonzept und Gestaltung von unfolded, erhältlich in jedem guten Buchladen oder bei Amazon.