Florian Bach
Der Apparat
29. Juni – 29. September 2007

The artist Florian Bach, who lives in Berlin and Geneva, has conceived an extensive project especially for the Kunstverein spaces under the mysterious title Der Apparat, which consists of more than 350 axes that leave behind a sculpture through a performance. The performance is the result of an intensive collaboration with the musician Marcello Silvio Busato and the dancer Sybille Müller.

The project "The Apparatus" begins thematically in the town of Arnsberg as the seat of the government and district court. The forestry industry and the material wood are an important economic factor for the region and the center of life for more than half of the inhabitants of the Hochsauerland. Florian Bach has developed an interesting performance from his personal impressions of the region, which was carried out in private, only in the presence of the artist and the two performers (Busato and Müller) and served as the starting point for the entire exhibition project. For the performance, 361 axes weighing exactly 1,250 kg were struck into a wooden floor, specially built for the exhibition, in a regular rhythm in a continuous backward motion with only one permitted blow per axe, without allowing any pauses for exhaustion. With Florian Bach, the objects and stories leave their familiar context and, as the installation project in Arnsberg shows, fit into a new one. The aesthetic perception of the viewer gains new dimensions, as described by the French philosopher Julia Kristeva: as "meaning and action"; as something that emerges and fades anew in every moment.