Hartung, Anne

Project Human / 2006

Installation

Project Human


Excerpts from the story „Everything“ by Ingeborg Bachmann make up the point of departure for the work produced at „WERKRAUM“. At the preview a single sentence was written in acrylic paint on a white wall: „… where he stood nothing was decided.“

At the beginning there was only an idea; the sketch was visible. The ensuing steps for the work, which lasted two weeks at „WERKRAUM“, were considered but remained a search for and attempt at the use of quotations. I partially altered the sentences by shortening them and substituting words. The literary reference became unimportant; I appropriated the text.

Once all of the sentences were on the wall, I hung on the adjacent wall small wooden frames filled with photographs that I had taken from advertising brochures for insurance companies, banks, and car manufacturers. I removed these found objects from their familiar context and framed and hung them like family photographs. I wanted to show text and image next to each other without creating an explicit relationship between text and image. The visual information of the images and the poetic/lyrical text could be viewed and read separately as well. The photographs illustrated a life without worries, with faith in the future, prosperity, family happiness, and health; the sentences asked about the ‚experiment: world‘.


Project Human

Glass Palace / 2004

Installation

Many scientists are convinced that the gene pool of the Icelandic population is more homogeneous than other nations because of the island’s century-long isolation and because countless catastrophes have thinned the population. In 1998, Iceland’s parliament passed a law giving the biotech firm „deCODE genetics“ the right to compile citizens’ medical information, including genetic analyzes, in a central, electronic database. The data of every Icelander is compiled unless he or she submits a written statement to the country’s chief medical officer expressly forbidding the data to be taken. In Germany in 2004, „Kaufmännische Krankenkasse“, a health insurance company, offered its customers a genetic test to check for genetic mutations.


Glass Palace

Ich zeig´ alles / 2002

Poster Campaign, Plakataktion auf City-Light-Flächen, Digital-Prints auf Backlightfolie / 1180 x 1740 cm

Ich zeig' alles


Anne Hartung engaged herself with the peoples need to present themselves within daily talk shows. Selected subjects occurring in these shows were staged by dollhouse puppets with quotes in speech balloons and then photographed. Two postcards were handed out in the city for free. Another two images could also be seen as backlit digital prints within a campaign using posters. The work dealt ironically with sensationalism and the vacuity of the participating audience.


Ich zeig' alles

Vita

*1974 in Leipzig

Projects