The astonishing re-staging of one of Germany鈥檚 most influential and internationally renowned contemporary artists is playful, bewildering, enticing and dazzlingly hypnotic.
Tobias Rehberger. Home and Away and Outside is not a retrospective, but a re-presentation of Tobias Rehberger鈥檚 (b. 1966) practice, which stands between art, design and architecture as a kind of site-specific Op Art. The exhibition covers the past 20 years and features 60 works both new and old.
Taking place within the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, a historic marketplace rebuilt as a monumental 2,000-square-foot gallery after its destruction during World War II, this is Rehberger鈥檚 first major solo show in Frankfurt. The city has been his home for the past 25 years, having studied under Martin Kippenberger at the Frankfurt鈥檚 celebrated St盲delschule, where Rehberger himself is now a professor of sculpture. Still, he is not new to large museum-style venues by any means; having had major solo shows in prominent European cities such as Milan, London, Graz and Madrid, he received international acclaim for his installation at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, which resulted in a commission to occupy the Palazzo delle Esposizioni during the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009.
Showing within the Italian pavilion for the 50th Biennale, Rehberger presented Seven Ends of the World, a suspended canopy of coloured glass lamps that were activated by sensors based in locations across the world, including a derelict Burger King in Kyoto, Japan, and a pumpkin field in rural Romania. He always creates work that transcends its function; here each lamp glowed with an intensity that was equal to the light levels at their corresponding 鈥渢rigger鈥 location.
Since Rehberger works with light, sculpture, painting, object and installation, his output is fundamentally diverse 鈥 in fact he describes this show as having been designed to 鈥渓ook like the work of three people鈥 鈥 however, his themes remain consistent. Drawing upon mass culture, art production techniques, and ideas of perspective, ownership, authorship and copyright, his environments emerge as ordinary conditions, everyday items and familiar situations that have been radically altered. The work is therefore interdependent upon the viewer, and whether a 鈥渄azzle-painted鈥 sculpture, an altered piece of furniture or, most recently, a 鈥渟hadow work鈥, the crux of Rehberger鈥檚 practice is without doubt a questioning of 鈥渢he way we view art.鈥
With this intention in mind, Tobias Rehberger. Home and Away and Outside is divided thematically into three parts, each section using sculptures, installations and paintings to test conventional viewing methods in a different way. The decision to split the show was partly enforced by the structure of the Kunsthalle, which, Rehberger explains, is not an easy space to work in: 鈥淥ne gallery is very long and narrow while the other used to be a concert hall, but it鈥檚 great that the space is difficult and not so ordinary.鈥 The show is curated by Matthias Ulrich (whose previous involvement with Jeff Koons鈥檚 exhibitions is discernible), and upon the collaboration, Rehberger comments: 鈥淚t was a friendly ping pong match 鈥 I was coming up with ideas and he was playing them back. It always seems to be that you think of something and then you need someone to reconfigure it, so that it fits. I suppose his job was to control me 鈥 in a way that makes sense.鈥 鈥淢aking sense鈥 is not a phrase that visitors would choose to describe their experience, instead they find themselves disorientated and befuddled. Of course this is Rehberger鈥檚 intention, as it is only by removing the viewer from their comfort zone that existing perspectives can be reassessed and new angles of consideration found. An artist who does not do anything by halves, Rehberger also spent part of his four-week installation adapting the architecture of his 700-square-metre space to avoid using the generic 鈥渨hite cube鈥 backdrop and to distort relationships between art and audience.
The first section of the exhibition is the segment that challenges convention most dramatically. Making use of Rehberger鈥檚 most well-known trope, dazzle paint, this vast installation builds upon his work that attained the Golden Lion for best artist at the 53rd Venice Biennale, Was du liebst, bringt dich auch zum Weinen (2009). However, while this award-winning 2009 cafeteria-style installation was designed to be used as a permanent functional space, here it is reimagined as an art space. The entire west gallery has been transformed into an artwork; its walls, floor and seating are wallpapered with a disorientating graphic paper that Rehberger designed especially for the show. It comprises black and white lines that zigzag and cross in differing thicknesses, shapes and proximity, and which are reflected in wall-mounted mirrors to produce a disorientating optical flicker.
Developed by the British Navy during World War I as camouflage for ships (and a technique which Pablo Picasso claimed had been stolen from Cubism), Rehberger uses 鈥渄azzle painting鈥 partly because he is 鈥渋nterested in art which you鈥檙e not supposed to look at.鈥 He continues: 鈥淎ll of this dazzle work is about this funny contradiction or paradox between something being very strong, graphic and colourful, and also being a camouflage technique. Here, he not only presents the paintwork as a standalone art piece, but also utilises its disguising quality to warp the viewing of the first room鈥檚 accompanying paintings, objects and deliberately faulted sculptures.鈥
Although Tobias Rehberger. Home and Away and Outside is not a retrospective, the artist states: 鈥淭here are many important pieces missing; it鈥檚 more that each work is part of a composition rather than having historical relevance.鈥 These dazzle pieces are a crucial inclusion as they have been pivotal within Rehberger鈥檚 practice. He explains: 鈥淚t鈥檚 important for me to think about or construct work that circles around the question of visibility: is art really only something to look at, or have around and behind you? I鈥檓 interested in the way that we use it.鈥 Rehberger feels that our relationship with art should be more 鈥渘atural and not so confrontational. We have to go somewhere, stand in front of something, stare at it, then it stares back and you go home. I think it should be more present everywhere and all around us. We shouldn鈥檛 always have to look at it 鈥 it鈥檚 also nice to have an Andy Warhol painting hanging behind your back.鈥
The sculptures in this first room could be seen to take inspiration from Pop Art and, of course, Op Art. There are Lichtenstein-esque speech bubbles and linear sculptures, oversized fists and tall monolithic blocks with clashing angles 鈥 objects which protrude and jar on the eye against their heavily patterned surroundings. In appropriating this widely used camouflage method Rehberger is, like Warhol, questioning individual authorship and copyright, and what counts as design, art or mass-produced commodity. Still, it is not a Pop, Op or even an interventional artist that Rehberger notes as an influence, but instead he simply names those who 鈥渁re critical about their work,鈥 those who rework and relay such as his former tutor, Kippenberger, and Francis Picabia, artists for whom 鈥渢he doubt is implemented in the work already.鈥
This doubt, or distrust, rather, continues throughout the exhibition as Rehberger re-encounters and questions the presentation of art, with the second room taking the form of a collection of chairs, lamps, vases and hanging lights, which are set in an 鈥渁ll-white plinth landscape.鈥
This space also stresses Rehberger鈥檚 intelligent use of lighting: 鈥淲hile the first space is quite contrasted, and completely confusing because of something structural, in the other (second) space we鈥檝e built into a big plinth; the floor is white as much as any architectural element is white, and it makes this very strange kind of blurry, almost foggy 鈥榚venlight鈥 in the space.鈥 Initially presenting autonomous sculpture in a chaotic environment, and then traditional furniture pieces within a second plinth-like space, Rehberger is admittedly 鈥渕aking fun鈥 of our preconceptions. This second, minimalist assembly asks the question: if an artwork has function, is it design? This, the artist dismisses as 鈥渁 ridiculous question.鈥 In Rehberger鈥檚 opinion 鈥渁rt is not art because there鈥檚 some kind of core or a soul that makes it art, it鈥檚 the way you look at it 鈥 you can look at anything and say that it鈥檚 an art piece. Then you can apply a catalogue of qualities to it to discern whether it鈥檚 a successful artwork or not 鈥 you can do that with anything and you can do it with the term design.鈥
Including functional items in the show signifies that Rehberger 鈥渜uestions certain ideas, or at least my status quo of what art should do 鈥 what is art? If I think about some work outside of the National Gallery in Berlin, a big cube of iron by Richard Serra (Berlin Block (for Charlie Chaplin) (1978), you sit on it on a hot summer鈥檚 day and it鈥檚 cold and it鈥檚 nice 鈥 is that a quality that an art should have? Does that contribute to the way that you think about objects? Why do we always ask the same questions? I think that鈥檚 where my approach started 鈥 I realised that those queries just weren鈥檛 getting me much further and I started asking things that weren鈥檛 being asked.鈥
The second space features a collection of sculptural pieces from the 1990s onwards, raising new ideas through representing them within a new setting. Rehberger describes curating these individual objects as 鈥渁 little bit like composing a painting: a few small objects, bigger pieces and colours that agree. All together it makes sense and it creates a picture.鈥
Notable works are included, such as the 1994 series We Never Work on Sundays, in which Rehberger drew, from his own flawed memories and with little regard for technical accuracy, examples of some of the most iconic 20th century furniture designs. These were then taken to Cameroon where Rehberger employed local carpenters, who were unfamiliar with the originals, to each build a single replica from their chosen drawing.
The results are bizarre misrepresentations of Rehberger鈥檚 already imperfect drafts. It leads to curious new works, for example, Alvar Aalto鈥檚 three-legged stool ends up with an extra leg for stability 鈥 which catches the eye and again examines issues of ownership and production methods, as well as confronting the viewer with a slightly misshapen version of reality.
The third part of this exhibition, Regret (2014), brings audiences back to viewing methods. Rehberger describes it as 鈥渁 very weird, semi-figurative piece鈥 or, more accurately, 鈥渁 destroyed satellite from Las Vegas鈥 鈥 proving that the show is essentially a playful game of perspectives.
Hanging from the glass ceiling of the atrium, within the Kunsthalle鈥檚 freely accessible Schirn Rotunda, Regret is a gigantic mass of neon tubes, brightly lit advertising signs, and fairground lights 鈥 reminiscent of Americana and buzzing metropolises, but also waste. Rehberger explains that, it was completed by an overhead spotlight, so that the form would 鈥渃ast a shadow onto a plinth, like a bench from which you can look at the object, so part of the content of the sculpture you don鈥檛 see by looking at it, you only see it by looking at your seat. It鈥檚 almost that the shadow is more important than the sculpture itself. It is only a production tool for the shade.鈥
This is of course the Outside of Tobias Rehberger. Home and Away and Outside: Home is the theme reflected in the second space鈥檚 conventional (almost) furniture items and Away is the first, dreamlike dazzle ensemble. Regret is the key work here, highlighting absolutely the significance of individual experience, opinion and perception for Rehberger鈥檚 practice: literally lifting the viewer onto a pedestal or 鈥減linth鈥 to confirm that there is no concrete categorisation or outdated canon for art, or design.
An artist who stands between conventions and genres, Tobias Rehberger confronts his audience with joyful overstimulation, playful questioning and their own preconceptions in this inquisitive and multi-faceted kaleidoscope of an exhibition. Tobias Rehberger. Home and Away and Outside continues until 11 May at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany. .
Chloe Hodge
