Attention Piece, 2015
Live performance over the course of several days at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
Performed by Tomas Kleiner und Marco Biermann
All work and photographs © Tomas Kleiner
Tomas Kleiner
About the artist
To learn more about the artist, please click here.
About the work
Two actors interact with museum visitors in the rooms of the Düsseldorf Kunsthalle. The intervention they carry out is, however, reduced to the minimum possible perception, because the experimental framework of the actors consists in moving exactly on the limit of visibility.
The means of expression are everyday, trivial, performative behaviours. The specific framework of the museum space allows the attentiveness of the visitors to be directed without great gestures:
A slightly more penetrating gaze than usual for the place - even if it is only from a distance, a minimally more intensive proximity to the visitor, be it for a longer time in the more distant vicinity, or be it strangely close for a short moment - and the visitor is already sensitised for a possible event.
What happens then, however, is apparently nothing more. –
As soon as the actors have the feeling of being at the border, of having gained the attention of the visitor and thus a kind of stage, the structure is immediately obscured again. The actor disguises himself again as a like-minded museum visitor in which he once again devotes himself to the exhibits, continues to walk, and does not enter into any further encounters with the museum visitor.
Thus, the visitor is left alone as to whether something has taken place, should have taken place, or could have taken place here.
Text in German: artist website