STANDSTILL (solo)

OVERVIEW

EXHIBITION SYNOPSIS

At a selected point in the exhibition room either Andreas Sell himself or actors hired by him stand still for hours. This type of action turns the human body into a work of art, a sculpture. The artist uses the act of standing in the exhibition as an image carrier of his interventions, thereby abstracting them at the same time. This work is enhanced by the presentation of the exhibit “60 Years of Chinese Fine Arts” at the National Art Museum of China.

Andreas Sell’s campaign does not create a predominantly contextual relation to other exhibition objects. His sculpture reflects the part of the visitor and captures an action pattern: standing/remaining in arts exhibits. The certainty that the living “sculpture” may move at any moment creates an irritating tension between the observer and the observed, thereby blurring the otherwise clearly contoured relationship between the artwork and the observer.

This intervention has a maximal effect, despite the minimality of its gesture. The conventional method of looking at pictures is interrupted. Especially the part of the observer is displaced by this reluctant action of standing still. The standing actor becomes an “intermediate person”, an observer artwork, and extends the perception of what a sculpture is. With this “still” action Andreas Sell takes an analytical look at the coordinates of the artwork, as well as at the entire institutional framework.