Welcome Home
CR 73. Year 1980
- EN
- FR
Welcome home come inside
See the door we used to walk through all the time?
The sun is out inside
Remember the laughter?
Gerz pushes the people and chairs in the room farther and farther back, up against the walls and out of the room, without however being able to force everyone out. This new parable of the artist and his relationship to society and its members has a captivating existential dimension in that neither side, performer or audience, has any means of resolving the situation.
Friedemann Malsch 2002
In quite a number of Jochen Gerz's performances, the public can hardly be described as limited to the comfortable role of the spectator… the public is called upon to participate in what is happening on stage (and the "stage" itself is sometimes located in the middle of the public), and not necessarily willingly, when they are "vigorously" shouted at, upset, prevented from sitting down, or even provoked, or yet again, shocked by what they see… (Welcome Home, 1980; We Are Coming, 1981; Pioniere!, 1982)…
Georges Heck 2002
In zahlreichen Performances von Jochen Gerz wird dem Publikum selten die komfortable Rolle des Zuschauers zugestanden. Er ist… eingeladen, am Geschehen auf der Bühne (manchmal mitten im Publikum) teilzunehmen. Nicht notwendigerweise auf eigenen Wunsch, wenn er mit Nachdruck angesprochen oder irritiert wird, gehindert wird sich zu setzen, sogar provoziert oder darüber hinaus von dem schockiert wird, was er sieht… ( Welcome Home, 1980; We Are Coming, 1981; Pioniere!, 1982).
Georges Heck 2002
Categories
Keywords
Performance
Reed mat, cassette recorder, cassette, cord
Duration approx. 30 minutes
Jochen Gerz’s upper body and his arms, which are extended over his head, are wrapped in a reed mat. The rest of his body is nude. He rolls across the floor, making a path through the audience and pulling a cassette recorder on a cord behind him. Two female voices are heard from the recorder. Gerz tips over chairs and disturbs people in the audience, who attempt to move out of his way.
The performance was documented as a video (686).
Realisations
Basel, 12.6.1980. Karlsruhe 1980. Hamburg 1980
Bibliography
I: Bielefeld 1981, pp. 16, 63-70, 120. Berlin 1983b, p. 65. Bielefeld 1985, pp. 129-133, 214. Paris 1994a, pp. 264-272. Tel Aviv 1995, pp. 52 – 64. Paris 2002, p. 47
II: Burri 1980, pp. 20-21. Grasskamp 1980, pp. 252-254. Adame 1981, p. 67
V: Hundertmark 1980, pp. 30-36. Katalog Neue Poesie 1980, pp. 66-70. Grasskamp 1986, pp. 176-181. Wolf 1992, pp. 5-18, p. 186. Beck 1996, pp. 8-9
Documentation
Video, 23 min (Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe)
Vidéo Les Beaux Jours, la Maison de l’Image, Strasbourg and imai, inter media art institute, Düsseldorf