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Hard to believe, even tears can be of art. In the laboratory of Gerda Steiner and Jrg Lenzlinger, installed at the Tinguely Museum, between the mechanical machines of Jean Tinguely, kinetics based in Basel, the visitor can shed a tear for aesthetic and scientific purposes and examine the ocular secretion under the microscope. If the offer does not tear you apart immediately, a friendly helper in white onion-smelling blouses helps you a bit. The result of torture: Tears form wonderful patterns of crystalline flowers. And each has a different structure, like snowflakes …
| Image: Tinguely Museum
This offer is only temporarily available in the museum. It is part of the exhibition "Too early to panic" by the Swiss artist Steiner & Lenzlinger. Strictly speaking, the Basel exhibition is a retrospective. Since 1997, the two artists work together. They create installations, embracing universes of natural discoveries and / or manufactured objects. Growth, transformation, crystallization, as well as metamorphosis by chemical reactions belong to their artistic program – which is however complete only when visitors play – for example, crying.
Playful irony is part of it
Exhibition, the origin of this idea has a tragic background. In 2012, Steiner & Lenzlinger exhibited in the Japanese city of Mito. Among other things, they collected 800 tears, which appeared in a crystallized form photographed as a book. A year after the reactor accident in Fukushima, they wanted to work with tears, their form of mourning work. Mito is an area of increased radioactivity, and the disaster of March 2011 was very present in the people. As a result, Steiner and Lenzlinger were amazed at how happy the Japanese were. In the case, however, bitter tears flowed.
Another station in the course that encourages self-experimentation is a pink room that could be used as a beauty salon. Here, visitors are invited to be infected with the beauty virus or to dream under a suspended meteorite. In a dark room, there is the possibility of finding the right flower for your own voice. "
Playful irony is part of the understanding of the art by Steiner & Lenzlinger. But his spa at the spa is finally. No matter who goes in their networked fitness machine to strengthen the opening arm musculature opens the lid of the left and right freezer chests, reminiscent of the grunting pigs and the murder of Khen to the real suppliers of the frosted goods. The fact that he thus sets the expansive sculpture, a kind of primitive forest, in motion, is almost drowned.
| Image: Tinguely Museum Basel
This is not the only indication of nature. A video shows savagely hen chickens spaghetti picking down trees, a strange dance ("Hhnerhpfen", 2016); By the way we discover a nest of dead bird in golden shoes ("Goldschatz", 2013):
| Image: STEINER LENZLIMGER
On a table, Steiner & Lenzlinger presented a seed collection ("Sleeping Seeds", 2002, "Seed Collection from Mali", 2003); the seed is the seed of all things, it is as fruitful as the roots that connect us both to our own past and to the history of humanity. Art can sometimes be so easy
| Image: DANIEL SPEHR
Steiner & Lenzlinger draw their ideas behind the scenes of the (always) tense relationship between man and nature. Incidentally, they were made famous in 2003 with an installation for the Venice Biennale. There, they rain plants on the dome of the church of San Stae, a garden that falls – like a falling breath – which, in some places, borders colorful crystal lakes. From a "rain of fertility" spoke a critic of art. Steiner & Lenzlinger work primarily in a specific way instead and only in a few exceptional cases are their works designed as permanent installations.
The Basel retrospective, organized by Sverine Fromaigeat in collaboration with the two Swiss artists, presents works dating back 25 years, The exhibition itself is conceived as a labyrinth. The visitor has the choice between three doors – past, present or future. For all cases: the journey is the destination
Those who choose the wood of the past, which is recommended, embark on a journey back in time until the first works of the artists duo initially influenced by painting, Steiner even then, crystals grew and ants could paint pictures. But even here, the visitor is confronted with the duo's collections that have been put together over the years, including rarities and curiosities that would grace any room of wonder. For example, prostheses, pacemakers, artificial hearing aids and hearing aids become grotesque.
Beauty is also found in austere and not perfect things, say Steiner & Lenzlinger, who do not need to be accused of being cumbersome. Recycling is part of their art without pretending to protect the environment: it is too early to panic. According to her, reprocessing closes the past in the present and the future. It is the cycle of life and death that occupies it. The three-part piece has its deep reason here.
"At the beginning of the panic". Tinguely Museum Basel. Until September 23rd. Tuesday to Sunday from 11 am to 6 pm, http://www.tinguely.ch
Personal
Gerda Steiner born in Ettwil in 1967, and Jrg Lenzlinger 1964 in Uster, lives in the canton of Baselland. Since 1997, artists have worked together. They are among the most renowned representatives of the Swiss art scene. Characteristic of his works are the spatial and multi-part works that surround the visitors and take them into cosmic-lyric worlds. At the Venice Biennale in 2003, they represented Switzerland with a filigree floating garden in the Church of San Stae. In 2017, they were last seen at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in the region. The exhibition at the Tinguely Museum is his first retrospective. (opi)
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