home
|
about
|
news
|
contents
|
gossip
|
photographs
|
venues
|
brighton
|
dublin
|
edinburgh
|
film
|
features
|
interviews
|
awards
|
fashion
|
recipes
|
no more drinks
|
newsletter
|
links
|
contact
Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
Exhibition -
Die Familie Schneider
Verdict: House-call to think twice about
London - Artangel - 2 Oct / Nov+ 04
This domestic peepshow - by German artist Gregor Schneider - offers tours of a pair of Whitechapel terraced houses in a street of identikit fascias (writes Micheline Sedgwick).
Keys are handed over with instructions – enter each house alone, take 10 minutes to explore, swap keys with the other person and repeat the exercise next door. Tours are at 20 minute intervals, for just two visitors at a time.
The only rule is to touch no one.
There are thousands of houses like these in London, where lives unravel behind closed doors. There’s a noise coming from behind the only door in the corridor. It opens into a kitchen where a middle-aged woman is washing up. The single light bulb in the middle of the room shines thinly on the dreary décor. There’s an old ceramic gas cooker - the kind only seen nowadays at Portobello junk shops - net curtains, a fridge, some bags of shopping yet to be emptied.
Speaking to her yields no response. This is the voyeur’s domain. A bead curtain divides the kitchen from the front room where nylon fabrics cover the armchairs and a coffee table sits in the middle, topped with a butt-filled ash tray.
Time to venture back to the corridor. The menace associated with cellars means the only way is up. At the first floor the brass knobs of two closed doors beckon.
The staircase goes further but the temptation to stop and explore is too great. One door opens into a bedroom. It's white and very hot. A fan heater pumps out dry electricity. It resembles a cheap porno film set – nylon bedspread and fitted mirrored-door wardrobes.
There’s a bin-bag in the far corner, propped up against a wall. Two legs emerge from the bag - lifeless.
Dripping water echoes loudly from behind the next door. It’s the bathroom - that staple of horror films. There’s a naked man in the shower. His back is turned. He is masturbating.
Retreating swiftly, it’s time to climb the final flight. A child’s gate covers the door. It’s locked tight, though it's possible to peep through the keyhole - though it's difficult when alone to be daring in a house so miserable as this.
Only the basement is left - the Blair Witch Project comes to mind. The first room is so darkly-painted it’s hard to make out what’s inside. The imagination takes over, conjuring up Fred West’s house.
The second room is half the size. A hidden burial chamber? A torture room? It’s wallpapered and carpeted and there’s a huge pile of luridly-decorated sweets and biscuits next to the doorway. It’s enough.
The physical act of swapping keys is harder than visiting the second property. It's a replica populated by identical people.
Die Familie Schneider is the stuff of nightmares, where the familiar turns to threatening and the safe to scary. It’s a house-call to think twice about.
Credits: Artist - Gregor Schneider. Cast - uncredited. Producer - Artangel. Commissioned by Artangel in association with the Kunststiftung
Nordhein-Westphalia with the support of The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, The Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation, The Henry Moore Foundation, The Moose Foundation for the Arts, IFA and Goethe Institut London.
END
(c) Micheline Sedgwick 2004
reviewed Wednesday 3 November 04 / Artangel
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012
www.fringereport.com
