EBERHARD BOSSLET, Kunstverein Heidelberg, 1987, Catalog, by RAIMUND STECKER
Intervention, support, presume -
The sites are always found; they are already there. The projects refer without exception to the sites as found either in as far as they react to the state of the site, or they are made to fit the project - that is to say, the work's essence. Much as a situation is experienced as a whole, so too are the given, the found, and the made inseparable constituents in the unity of the work. The whole is achieved in the dialog which is set up between it and what is found, the found and what is made, the made and the site ...
These conditions hold just as true for the INTERVENTIONEN (in the following refered to as Interventions) projects, as they do for the UNTERSTÜTZENDEN MASSNAHMEN (in the following refered to as Supporting Measures) projects of Eberhard Bosslet's. In the same way his INTERVENTIONS interfere with the appearance of a landscape or a building-site, so do his installations with post shores (steel-pipe-ceiling-supports) support the given interior space.
Usually the sites are abandoned, run down building-complexes gone unnoticed until Eberhard Bosslet intervenes by merely colouring their contours. The ultramarine blue lines drawn along the broken edges of remaining whitewashed walls near Barcelona, INTERVENTION SARIA, just as much as the white contours which correspond to the architectonic and material givens of an abandoned and already in part decaying Duisburger dock construction, INTERVENTION INNENHAFEN (inner harbour), tear these weathered sites from their customary unobtrusivness and thus forlorn state. In this manner the artistic process of painting coloured contours interferes with the aesthetic status of the site. This is also an interference with its non-functional category of existence. It is like a visual corset, one that forces the material conditions of the buildings into visual terms, thereby representing static support measures, and pointing to the possibility of potential use, and beyond that, setting markings by which progressive decay becomes visible.
The purpose of the interior installations, SUPPORTING MEASURES, to which the work group ANMASSEND, (in the following refered to as Presumptuous), in the left, back stairway of the Fridericianum (documenta 8, Kassel 1987) belonged, is the same. (page 12/13)
It was not actually exhibition space, but rather a part of the building and beyond that a specially defined one: the stairway. Serving as a connection between the second and first storeys - as it is meant to be used it is the only place where the interdependence of the storey above (between the ceiling and the floor of the attic storey) and the storey below (between the ceiling and the floor of the first storey) is visible. One has a particularly good view of this at the half-landing, between the two storeys, when a view of the lower installation is possible: both parts of the "presumption" appear in perfect plumb with another.
Clamped into the lower installation is a desk and wooden panels; otherwise the post shores, that were necessary for his SUPPORTING MEASURES, were used. They are the forces that make it possible, firstly to fit the desk, wooden panels, the batch off stones, and the metal filing cabinet between the floor and
the ceiling of the first storey, and then, secondly, between the floor and the ceiling of the attic storey. A part of the
building even becomes a supporting part of the SUPPORTING MEASURE; the wall between the ceiling of the lower storey and floor of the upper storey. Indispensable therefore, is the unity between the given, the found, and the made by Eberhard Bosslet's PRESUMPTIOUS; undeniably because of the attention given to the site as a result of the "presumption". The ambiguity implicit in PRESUMPTIOUS is also lexical one, it means both to "presume to pass judgement on/have an opinion about something" and, in German, to take to measure: from the verb "to take measurements of something", "anmessen". The factual existence of double meanings, as evident in PRESUMPTUOUS, is also present in his other works. In Eberhard Bosslet's INTERVENTIONS, a term, by the way, which in bank jargon refers to supporting measures taken to stabilise the value of a falling currency on the money market, he manages to the achieve the aesthetic experience that the building fragments and ruins demand. -
Just the same, his interventions often enough cause the building-complexes to finally be returned to their original function, or unfortunately even more often, to cause their demolition. (In the end this was also the results of Gordon Matta-Clark's "decisive" intervention in his Antwerp Office- Baroque: the city authorities ordered the destruction of the US-American artist’s work) The INTERVENTIONS thus bring about the culmination of those situations which the coloured contours interfere, but above and beyond that, also potentially happens, namely then, when he is finished with the building fragment, or ruin, or its demolition changes the whole situation. The achievement- Eberhard Bosslet’s work is capable of demonstrating this – denies its own effects!
The final consequence of his INTERVENTIONS, as we have seen, can be radical in its effects: much as his SUPPORTING MEASURES. After all, the post shore installation reels on the supporting forces produced between the ceiling and the floors or walls. The support of the ceiling is always simultaneously a burdening of the floor, the destruction of which means there is only one phase in which the installation is existent. It is the phase between the more-than to-little force needed to support his construction and the less-than-too-much which would cause floor and ceiling, his work and the building to be destroyed. That this is not merely theoretical speculation was proven by the 1985 SUPPORTING MEASURE of "Ruimte Morguen" in Antwerp, which was visibly forcing the walls of the building apart.
It takes the presumption to allow a site as the Fridericianum be seen as factually part of the exhibition; signifying its aesthetic, as well as, its functional value. However, in doing this PRESUMPTUOUS brings the site, and the entire building by implication, to a potentially imaginable destruction. Thus, even for the SUPPORTING MEASURES, the opposite of the effected is also implicated.
Seen in this way, the SUPPORT MEASURE in the stairway of the Fridericianum is PRESUMTUOUS, but
"nobody could get passed" this presumption.
Raimund Stecker Translation: Dawn Leach-Rühl
2
Intervention, support, presume -
The sites are always found; they are already there. The projects refer without exception to the sites as found either in as far as they react to the state of the site, or they are made to fit the project - that is to say, the work's essence. Much as a situation is experienced as a whole, so too are the given, the found, and the made inseparable constituents in the unity of the work. The whole is achieved in the dialog which is set up between it and what is found, the found and what is made, the made and the site ...
These conditions hold just as true for the INTERVENTIONEN (in the following refered to as Interventions) projects, as they do for the UNTERSTÜTZENDEN MASSNAHMEN (in the following refered to as Supporting Measures) projects of Eberhard Bosslet's. In the same way his INTERVENTIONS interfere with the appearance of a landscape or a building-site, so do his installations with post shores (steel-pipe-ceiling-supports) support the given interior space.
Usually the sites are abandoned, run down building-complexes gone unnoticed until Eberhard Bosslet intervenes by merely colouring their contours. The ultramarine blue lines drawn along the broken edges of remaining whitewashed walls near Barcelona, INTERVENTION SARIA, just as much as the white contours which correspond to the architectonic and material givens of an abandoned and already in part decaying Duisburger dock construction, INTERVENTION INNENHAFEN (inner harbour), tear these weathered sites from their customary unobtrusivness and thus forlorn state. In this manner the artistic process of painting coloured contours interferes with the aesthetic status of the site. This is also an interference with its non-functional category of existence. It is like a visual corset, one that forces the material conditions of the buildings into visual terms, thereby representing static support measures, and pointing to the possibility of potential use, and beyond that, setting markings by which progressive decay becomes visible.
The purpose of the interior installations, SUPPORTING MEASURES, to which the work group ANMASSEND, (in the following refered to as Presumptuous), in the left, back stairway of the Fridericianum (documenta 8, Kassel 1987) belonged, is the same. (page 12/13)
It was not actually exhibition space, but rather a part of the building and beyond that a specially defined one: the stairway. Serving as a connection between the second and first storeys - as it is meant to be used it is the only place where the interdependence of the storey above (between the ceiling and the floor of the attic storey) and the storey below (between the ceiling and the floor of the first storey) is visible. One has a particularly good view of this at the half-landing, between the two storeys, when a view of the lower installation is possible: both parts of the "presumption" appear in perfect plumb with another.
Clamped into the lower installation is a desk and wooden panels; otherwise the post shores, that were necessary for his SUPPORTING MEASURES, were used. They are the forces that make it possible, firstly to fit the desk, wooden panels, the batch off stones, and the metal filing cabinet between the floor and
the ceiling of the first storey, and then, secondly, between the floor and the ceiling of the attic storey. A part of the
building even becomes a supporting part of the SUPPORTING MEASURE; the wall between the ceiling of the lower storey and floor of the upper storey. Indispensable therefore, is the unity between the given, the found, and the made by Eberhard Bosslet's PRESUMPTIOUS; undeniably because of the attention given to the site as a result of the "presumption". The ambiguity implicit in PRESUMPTIOUS is also lexical one, it means both to "presume to pass judgement on/have an opinion about something" and, in German, to take to measure: from the verb "to take measurements of something", "anmessen". The factual existence of double meanings, as evident in PRESUMPTUOUS, is also present in his other works. In Eberhard Bosslet's INTERVENTIONS, a term, by the way, which in bank jargon refers to supporting measures taken to stabilise the value of a falling currency on the money market, he manages to the achieve the aesthetic experience that the building fragments and ruins demand. -
Just the same, his interventions often enough cause the building-complexes to finally be returned to their original function, or unfortunately even more often, to cause their demolition. (In the end this was also the results of Gordon Matta-Clark's "decisive" intervention in his Antwerp Office- Baroque: the city authorities ordered the destruction of the US-American artist’s work) The INTERVENTIONS thus bring about the culmination of those situations which the coloured contours interfere, but above and beyond that, also potentially happens, namely then, when he is finished with the building fragment, or ruin, or its demolition changes the whole situation. The achievement- Eberhard Bosslet’s work is capable of demonstrating this – denies its own effects!
The final consequence of his INTERVENTIONS, as we have seen, can be radical in its effects: much as his SUPPORTING MEASURES. After all, the post shore installation reels on the supporting forces produced between the ceiling and the floors or walls. The support of the ceiling is always simultaneously a burdening of the floor, the destruction of which means there is only one phase in which the installation is existent. It is the phase between the more-than to-little force needed to support his construction and the less-than-too-much which would cause floor and ceiling, his work and the building to be destroyed. That this is not merely theoretical speculation was proven by the 1985 SUPPORTING MEASURE of "Ruimte Morguen" in Antwerp, which was visibly forcing the walls of the building apart.
It takes the presumption to allow a site as the Fridericianum be seen as factually part of the exhibition; signifying its aesthetic, as well as, its functional value. However, in doing this PRESUMPTUOUS brings the site, and the entire building by implication, to a potentially imaginable destruction. Thus, even for the SUPPORTING MEASURES, the opposite of the effected is also implicated.
Seen in this way, the SUPPORT MEASURE in the stairway of the Fridericianum is PRESUMTUOUS, but
"nobody could get passed" this presumption.
Raimund Stecker Translation: Dawn Leach-Rühl
2
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