Backstage
For many years now, Helke Bayrle—a film maker based in Frankfurt
am Main—has documented the activities of the Portikus. The result is a
unique collection of artist portraits. Here we present the last decade. This
is backstage material, the kind of things that the viewer of the finished
exhibitions never sees. Some of the artists really like talking about what
they do and about the significance of what they present, others prefer
to simply work with the installation team and the curator. Helke Bayrle's
unique material is very large and represents an important archive of
contemporary exhibition making. These three discs present an edited
version of the artist portraits. They give us a glimpse of each artist's work
at the Portikus, and at the same time they offer a unique behind the
scenes view of the activities at one of Europe's most lively experimental
art institutions. Each chapter offers a version of the Portikus “under
construction.”
The Portikus is an exhibitions space that is associated with the
Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. A production site rather than a
traditional gallery, it is an institution willing to redefine its basic parameters
with every new project. Since the late 1980s, some 160 exhibitions
and innumerable other events have been staged there, and with each
project the space has changed. Sometimes it is a factory, sometimes a
kitchen or a stage for gatherings and performances. Sometimes it is a
classical white museum space, sometimes a cinema, a green house or a
swimming pool. How can one portray an institution like this?
This collection starts with
Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset's “Powerless
Structures, Fig. 111” in 2001. It was like a rite of passage, a white zone
we all had to pass through before other things could start to evolve. This
exhibition reminded us of the fundamental restrictions of the classical
gallery space, and hinted at possibilities we weren't yet aware of. The
series of projects it initiated were to follow a logical route: steps of
expansion leading up to the final blast that implied the deconstruction
of the venue itself. “Spaced Out,” their second show, marked an end
that was also a kind of beginning. It made the general rule of our activity
clear: these exhibition projects were all, in different ways, about the
active production of space. That continued after we left the original space behind the façade, and the characteristics of our second “container”—
designed by
Tobias Rehberger and
Olafur Eliasson—triggered novel kinds
of spatial exploration. In 2006 we moved into our new site at the Alte
Brücke.
Left in its pure skeletal form, the interior of the building is not a normal
white cube. Almost nine meters high, its space is very generous and
allows for sculptural displays that very few galleries for art can handle. At
the height of about six meters there is a balustrade from which further
spots can illuminate the works on display. If the Portikus wants to show
a large sculptural work by Paola Pivi or
Michael Beutler, say, then the
space should clearly be left the way it is. If the works on display need a
spatial backdrop of a more modest kind, all that is required is that a few
very basic devices be activated; they completely shift the perception of
the gallery. A semi-transparent textile ceiling installed on the height of the
balustrade creates the most basic of classical white cubes. The Portikus
is a low-tech machine: for shows that require a dark space one only need
to roll out a few large carpets that lie prepared in the attic above the inner
glass ceiling. The Portikus is run by a very small group of people, assisted
by young artists. Together with the curators Jochen Volz, Nikola Dietrich,
and Melanie Ohnemus as well as the organization team Karin Sust, Julia
Jung, and Dorothea Jendricke, I have had the pleasure and privilege
to organize exhibitions with artists from all over the world in this unique
institution. One thing has remained stable: the presence of Helke Bayrle
during installation.
Prof. Dr. Daniel Birnbaum, 2009
