Display
2016
Conversion and renovation of a
project space for contemporary art
in Berlin-Schöneberg
3 rooms, 65 square meters
On behalf of display-berlin/
Marie DuPasquier
Photos: Adrienne Bovet
DISPLAY, a project space for contemporary art, is set in the ground floor of a Gründerzeit house in Berlin-Schöneberg, founded by Marie DuPasquier in 2016. A big display case connects the inside with the outside and became eponymous for the exhibtion space.
The conversion and renovation included painting works, removal of wall papers, new floor covering, kitchen remodeling and lighting installation with three fluorescent tubes T8 in the middle of the exhibition room .
Tohu wâ bohū
2015
Ceiling extention at
Prediger Church Zurich
Five helium balloons and carrier
Each balloon 180cm diameter
At the invitation of Adrian Notz,
director of Cabaret Voltaire
and the STEO foundation
Photos: Nora Hauswirth, Nikkol Rot
In a solumn procession
led by Paul Polaris, five large helium balloons bearing images of the five
major organs, were carried by as many people from Heimplatz, just outside the
Kunsthaus Zurich, into the Prediger Church. Inside the church they were
released, hitting the ceiling with a bang. The images on the balloons - of a
lung, liver, spleen, heart and kidney – united to form a kind of organic
ceiling mural, a pneumatic iconoclasm, that at once celebrated, sanctified and
worshipped the organic. Whilst the plan was to leave them until they naturally
descended, after a week they were still there, and had to be manually
removed.
In a publication entitled Invent the Future with Elements of the Past,
religious scholar and author Dolores Zoe Bertschinger imagines how these icons,
this iconoclasm may have been understood by the founding fathers of the Zurich
Reformation.
Invent the Future with Elements of the Past is a project of STEO
Foundation in collaboration with Hans Ulrich Obrist and the Cabaret Voltaire.
This work was made in response to an invitation extended to twelve Zurich
artists, to go on a walk with Lucius Burckhardt, founder of strollology.
Bringing my Heart form the Sea
2015
Temporary installation at Teatro
Marinoni on the island Lido as
part of Salon Suisse in Venice
Five balloons, painted and filled
with air, 180cm diameter each
At the invitation of Juri Steiner
and Stefan Zweifel
Photos: Andrea Santini
Teatro Marinoni is an abandoned theatre of a former clinic for tuberculosis on the island Lido in Venice. Just a short walk away on the waterfront, Paul Polaris is fishing a big, red balloon out of the sea. In a silent procession this balloon is carried into the inside of the theatre and positioned under the ceiling fresco showing Neptun, the roman water god. Inside the room there are four more balloons and relicts of Tohu wâ bohu arranged. During and after, Philippe Eustachon and Francesca Sarah Toich recite texts by Antonin Artaud and read from the Egyptian book of the dead.
Boom Boom Bang Bang
2012-2013
Intervention & building application
Kunsthaus Zurich, Heimplatz 1
Paper, typewriter, spray can,
At the invitation of Sabeth Tödtli,
Urban laboratroy zURBS
On April 17,
2014, at Heimplatz in Zurich, Paul Polaris gave a farewell speech to the
Kunsthaus. Polaris delivered her poetic swan song standing on a beer barrel.
She interrupted herself with the smashing of champagne glasses at regular
intervals.
Following a lengthly collaboration with a renowned Swiss explosion expert, an application for planning permission was submitted on April 2014 to the Zurich planning permission office, titled "Conversion into a ruin by blowing up”. Collapse principle, vibration prediction, ignition sequence and security dispositive formed the basic elements of this proper planning application, which was rejected under Building Decision 705/14.
Text by
Dolores Zoe Bertschinger and Elly Clark
base
2010
Intervention at a former brewery
Landsbergerallee 54, 10249 Berlin
Styrofoam, smoothening compound
0,8 x 1,2 x 1 m (WxLxH)
At the invitation of Paulus Fugers,
Photos: Paulus Fugers, Paul Polaris