Yorgos Sapountzis MICHSICH HOTEL

With works by
Yorgos Sapountzis

Curated by
Christiane Rekade

In his installations, videos and performances Yorgos Sapountzis (*1976 in Athens, lives in Berlin) brings new awareness to the places of public life, involving their present as well as their past. For his solo exhibition at Kunst Meran he has engaged with the semi-public spaces of hotel rooms, linking them with the studio as the place of art production as well as the exhibition space as the place where art is presented and viewed. During preparations the artist had the opportunity to look through the depots of various Merano hotels and chose objects and furniture that he incorporates in his installation at Kunsthaus. Based on the characteristic architecture of the former loggia house he orchestrates a scenographical sequence of situations, objects and narratives on the first two floors.

This dense arrangement starts with an installation of objects from the artist’s studio: materials, tools – things that then again multiply and intermingle with drawings of said objects. Look and Cook – this invitation to look very closely that is in the title of the installation, can be understood as a clue to the whole exhibition. The objects reappear again and again in different forms – as objects, as images in form of drawings but also as photographs that Sapountzis prints onto linen cloths: “I like creating chaos with my materials, which I must then put back in order. And more still I like the surprise and feeling of success when things work out. The process is more important than the result.” (Sapountzis in an interview with Yilmaz Dziewior) 

Yorgos Sapountzis always works with light and simple materials: aluminium rods, linen cloths and coloured fabrics serve him as image carriers as well as architectonic elements. These flexible, temporary installations emphasise the mobility and dynamic that also characterise Sapountzis’ videos and performances. In a new video produced especially for this exhibition he also places himself in relation to urban space: during a late night stroll the artist moves through Merano and reveals a changed perception of the city.   

The presence of human bodies is central in Sapountzis’ works and in the exhibition: for one thing, it’s omnipresent in the photographs and fragments and casts of statues. In the installation Dance Studio for example, plaster casts of body fragments gather in front of a kind of paravent. For another, every visitor rewrites the exhibition through their presence and movement in the space. 

The exhibition title MICHSICH HOTEL contains a reference to individual as well as collective memories and experiences. At the same time it alludes to the overlapping of private and public space. When walking through the installations and rooms new configurations and narratives emerge.