Tobias Rehberger
Galerie fur Zeitgenossische, Kunst, Leipzig, Germany
Stanley Kubrick’s costume drama Barry Lyndon (1975), got a nod from Tobias Rehberger’s exhibition ‘The Secret Bulb in Barry L. (EG)’ - a collection of works which referenced light and light sources. Whereas Kubrick’s film was full of candle-lit interiors, most of Rehberger’s rooms emanated a self-conscious electric glow. In the last decade he has exhibited many a catchy idea revolving around the matrix of value-adding, collaboration, style, and interplay between disciplines. This exhibition of recent works was a reiteration of his ideas about mix-and-match conceptual decor, and art based on good design. Given its timing, it was hard not to see the exhibition as a survey of the taste and attitudes that at least partly characterised the last decade.
The rooms of this new venue aren’t easy to use; they vary between an ornate former sitting room and a big, glass-walled hall - part of a slick renovation of the original villa. In one room, a group of works Standard Rad (C. A Man Called Horse) (1999), Standard Rad (K. Invasion of the Body Snatchers/C. Soldier Blue) (1999) and Standard Rad (A. The Incredible Shrinking Man) (1999), combined to form a comfortless orange office interior customised for a young firm. Built-in flickering television screens were placed into shelving niches with the screens facing the wall, which made it impossible to watch them. Perhaps this was lucky - they were showing videos of the employees’ most traumatic cinema experiences. The furniture looked like the prefab equivalent of streetwear, or semi- functional design for mildly dysfunctional users. More of a classic was Rehberger’s Stockholm. Summer (1999), a 13 metre purple curtain covered with diagonal stripes based on a work by Swedish Constructivist painter Olle Baertling.
Rehberger’s collaboration with Olafur Eliasson, Ohne Titel (1998), resulted in a neat piece of mood lighting. It consisted of a wood-veneer orb hung in the centre of the room at knee height and lit by three gel covered spots. The lights produced three corresponding soft-tinted shadows on the opposite wall - as appealing as witnessing a high school physics project.
In the villa’s neo-Rococo room, the installation Absolut (1999) comprised American designer George Nelson’s white lamps, which Rehberger grouped and dangled at different heights. Beneath them lay a crumpled A4 page, which seemed to have been casually dropped by someone. Printed on it was a description by an ‘anonymous male’ of the body of his ideal woman. My companion reflected that the disturbingly predictable text reminded her of ‘ordinary Frankfurt boy seeks perfect Frankfurt girl’. We could only agree that a fanatical pursuit of the ideal does screw one up.
Reminiscent of Rehberger’s earlier works, such as the gold chains he designed and named after individuals on the staff of the first Berlin Biennale, and his celebrated vase and bouquet portraits of the artists of his Berlin gallery, was the series ‘I’d Really Love To’ (1999). These are based on Rehberger’s seemingly sardonic responses to the dreams of several of his friends. He transcribed the desire for a baby, a French or an Italian palace, designer clothes and a string of pearls into wish-specific furnishings. I’d R. L. T. (Clothes) (1999), for example, is a one-suit closet with a built-in fluorescent strip which he created in response to the dream of an original designer outfit every month for the rest of the dreamer’s life. The furniture is equally reminiscent of treasured Bauhaus prototypes and the abandoned and rotting formica sink cupboards I saw on a wintry Leipzig street after visiting the show.
It’s not surprising to discover so many similarities between Rehberger’s aesthetic and that of so many clubs, bars and show window displays. The various currencies of hip are always subject to hyper-inflation - which is something that Rehberger knows and uses.
Dominic Eichler
