Balthaus, Fritz

CONTEXT SWITCHES:
"ARTISTIC ACTION IN PUBLIC SPACE"
in: kunststadt stadtkunst volume 57, published by the Kulturwerk of the BBK Berlin 2010

...
Christian Hasucha makes the difference between "here" and "there" in his works. His artistic strategy of translocating people and places is programmatic for the lecture series and offers profound insights into the aesthetic productivity of this import and export of people and things - from ancestral places into unfamiliar environments.

In "Günters Fenster" Günter Schulz, early retiree, former brewery worker, newspaper carrier and porter, who has been living alone in his 1-room apartment on the second floor of a tenement building in Berlin-Neukölln since 1994, is translocated to Mülheim-Ruhr. Günter's favorite place is the windowsill with the faded cushions. Leaning on it, he watches the goings-on in the backyard. Christian Hasucha has looked back and recreated the window seat - retaining the compass direction and the floor - on the edge of downtown Mülheim. Günter Schulz's furniture is also transported to Mülheim /Ruhr, Günter himself travels there for 2 weeks and also takes the window seat there, this time with a view of Mülheim. Günter stands at the window, leaning on his worn cushions and observes the passers-by. Now and then he climbs down from the scaffolding to go shopping. Overnight accommodation is sponsored for him by the nearby hotel.

Christian Hasucha's minimalist open space exchange "Pulheimer Rochade" lives only from the surroundings from which something was taken and into which something was put.

An area of about 25 square meters at the Pulheim Realschule is exchanged for an area of the same size in front of the Abbey 5 km away in the district of Brauweiler. Road surfaces, bollards, bicycle racks, litter bins and a piece of hunter's fence are changing locations. The interlocking stones with a white marking line are clamped to an iron girder for transport and precisely aligned at the new location. The replaced itself is just as important as the context; interior and exterior are interdependent and live from the bizarre, almost overlooked structural breaks in the pavements and functions between elevated and underground structures. Context-switches at their finest. When Christian Hasucha realizes during his lecture that he has forgotten to bring the final illustrations for the "Pulheimer Rochade", the audience member Thorsten Goldberg is on the spot, delivers the missing illustrations with his internet cell phone and lets it wander through the audience rows. Since introduced media always also contribute to the project text, the question arises at this point whether the "Pulheimer Rochade" with its exchanged chess squares is perhaps already inspired by Google-Earth, and thus the military, formerly divine perspective has become responsible for civilian art projects.

Cf. Project documentation Nr. 34 Pulheim Castling