 Safe, 2003 Kirsten Pieroth In her second solo exhibition at Gallery Klosterfelde Kirsten Pieroth shows a series of new works dealing with various interpretations of the term "invention". The artist researched facts and fables of the life and work of American inventor Thomas Alva Edison who until today holds the record in the most patents registrated. The myth of his productivity and creativity is transferred into general questions about artistic production. The exhibition title "I regret that a previous engagement prevents me from accepting your kind invitation to dinner at your home, on Thursday evening, September seventeenth", taken from an original Edison letter, is the starting point for the work "Letter of an Inventor". Could the excuse with which Edison cancels the invitation to a dinner party, be an invented one and therefore be patented as an invention? Searching for a solution of this assumption, Pieroth undertakes a complicated course of letters of correspondence. By on the one hand equating the two meanings of the word "invention" and on the other hand dissolving the border between life and work of Edison, she undermines the claim to truth and efficiency usually applied to patented inventions. "Edison's Workbench" is based on one of the various depictions showing Edison sleeping, in this case on his working table. The photography is signed with "Thomas A. Edison", a signature which was proven to be a fake. Pieroth reconstructs the table and transfers the signature onto the object. With this doubling of the fake autograph, the relation of original and copy, authentic document and reproduction is questioned. Opposite to the working table is "Edison's Restbench", a reconstruction of Edison's garden bench from his "Experimental Garden" in Florida. Pieroth built it out of old wooden boards with rusty nails sticking out, thereby subverting the original function of the bench as a resting place. Into this complex net of references and associations the gallery space is integrated when Pieroth takes a safe hidden within a hollow wall out into the exhibition room in order to execute a break through at this very spot of the wall. The exhibition context is thus reconnected to another mythic Edison story according to which a safe was recently found during archaeological diggings in the basement of his first laboratory. Through subtle displacements Kirsten Pieroth deprives objects of their original identity and meaning. They are rendered undefined between a state of reconstruction, signifying correspondence and performative residue. October 4 - December 6, 2003 Hours: Tue-Sat 11 am - 6 pm Klosterfelde Zimmerstrasse 90/91 D-10117 Berlin-Mitte Telefon +49 30 283 53 05 Fax +49 30 283 53 06 E-Mail office@klosterfelde.de www.klosterfelde.de |
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