During the 1996 Gramercy Art Fair, Stefan Altenburger shoved the furniture in Peter Kilchmann’s space to one side, then dismantled each piece and reconstructed it while an Arnold Schwarzenegger fitness video flickered on a television screen. Moving around the room, Altenburger grabbed various objects, hoisting a large mattress—among other things—carrying it around and then putting it down again. His performance yielded constellations of objects, “installations” formed only to dissolve into situations suggesting a move from a house or a construction site. The video that was produced was then projected against the backs of mattresses leaning against the wall.
In Altenburger’s recent show, stills from this video were displayed on the walls, and two longish wooden boxes, with a peephole on the front of each, stood in the middle of the space. By kneeling and looking through the holes, one assumed the position of the camera that had filmed the videos running inside. One of the tapes showed sequences of the artist slowly moving around in the tiny interior, all the while undressing, dressing, and undressing again, while in the other he manipulated a fluorescent lightbulb. This complex homage to Bruce Nauman dodges the implicit challenge of Nauman’s work, opposing it with a patently absurd, almost autistic quality. The same was true of the video piece Let me dance with you, 1995, installed at the entrance to the space. For a show last season at the Kunsthaus Zurich, Altenburger had danced to the point of exhaustion in front of a video camera under a revolving disco ball, to the accompaniment of techno sounds he sampled himself. The invitation to dance announced in the title of the resulting videotape that was shown in the gallery, underneath another disco ball, was sustained through the constant presence of the projected dancer.
Altenburger assumes a variety of identities: a cleaning person, a sportsman, an artist, a furniture mover, or an actor in an absurdist play. Though Sisyphian, this activity is not frustrating for Altenburger, as he does not intend to produce an enduring work of art. When each videotape runs out, the final question—Is it art?—remains unanswered. Altenburger always plays his game according to the same minimal rules, playacting with found objects in a particular space for the duration of a videotape.
With neither illusion nor disillusion, and without the shattering of taboos often found in Happenings and Fluxus (movements his work at times recalls), Altenburger’s pragmatic yet explorative playacting conveys a sense of endless anticipation.
—Hans Rudolf Reust
Translated from the Germany by Vivan Heller.
