PORTAL, PORTAL II
14. December 2003 - 29. February 2004

www.fridericianum-kassel.de/

Coup (Peter van den Hoogen [NL], Erica Terpstra [NL]), Benoît Goupy [F], Nils Klinger [D], Germaine Kruip [NL], Guillaume Leblon [F], LIGNA (Ole Frahm [D], Michael Hüners [D], Thorsten Michaelsen [D]),
Franz Pomassl [A], Tomo Savić-Gecan [HR], Kristy Trinier [CDN]

Opening: Saturday 13. December 2003, 4 PM
Introduction: Suzanne van de Ven, curator

From the beginning of June until halfway July 2003 the building of the Fridericianum formed the basis for Germaine Kruip's in situ installation REHEARSAL. Conceived of within the context of the first of two PORTAL-exhibitions, explicitly inviting artists to take the space - or rather may be 'time-space' - of the museum as a starting point for their work, REHEARSAL employed the existing lighting and acoustic conditions of the building as its medium. REHEARSAL manifested itself twenty-four hours a day during the whole forty-four day exhibition period.
The synchronization of the museum's façade- and ground floor inside lights, dimming and lighting in a steady and continuous tempo, constituted a platform, that stretched its borders beyond the museum's 'functional' spaces to the outside of building. The installation's point of gravity was based in the main right wing gallery, where the existing lighting grid had been lowered to an unsettling height, and where the acoustics of its concrete floor were changed into those of a wooden stage. This - almost literal - stage in turn served in the course of the exhibition as the basis for another work: On the occasion of AFFIXE II, the second platform expanding PORTAL I, Germaine Kruip invited the Austrian sound artist Franz Pomassl to develop a fifteen-minute performance, that took the recorded sound of footsteps in her installation as its basic material.

One building, one installation and one performance so far. By inviting different artists whose work in its own specific way could qualify as 'in situ'- work, PORTAL attempts to offer tailor-made stages to the variously-natured work it harbours. The experimental exhibition format as such though also aims at showing the museum's structures, in a simultaneous attempt to see how their borders can be stretched. PORTAL II will not only ta ke the spaces of the Fridericianum as its starting point, but will also - comparable to the second part of a diptych - take the previous exhibition into account, comprising it in an elemental way. Both Germaine Kruip and Franz Pomassl will return as artists contributing to PORTAL II, together with a total of seven international artists, who all, in their very different ways make in-situ work. Varying their approa ches from the extremes of the conceptual or performative to the purely physical or installational each artist will occupy the time-space that will do his work most just. LIGNA, a collective that researches controlled environments, addressing their outspoken and silently agreed upon (social) laws, will take on a different stage from Tomo Savić-Gecan, an artist who works from a strong conceptual background, often establishing his work via an unpredictable network within exhibitions. Juxtaposed to the installational work of Guillaume Leblon, often causing discontinuities in a ccepted spaces, that of Kristy Trinier, altering the perception of spaces or that of Benoit Goupy, cherishing the more secret aspects of spaces, only one fact is definite about PORTAL II's outcome: all works, visible or non-visible during museum's opening hours, will, documented by Nils Kli nger, be united in the comprehensive catalogue that documents the project as such.

AFFIXE III, IV and V will respectively take place on December 17, 2003, January 28 and February 25, 2004. AFFIXE IV will form the occasion for presenting PORTAL's catalogue, designed by Coup.

For more information please contact:
Regina Bärthel at presse@fridericianum-kassel.de
or
Suzanne van de Ven at ven@fridericianum-kassel.de

PORTAL II is realized with the kind support of AFAA-Bureau des Arts plastiques / französische Botschaft,
DeïsKa BV, Amsterdam and ISS GmbH, Ice & Solar Systems, Egelsbach.

Friedrichsplatz 18, 34117 Kassel, Germany T.: +49.561.7072720
Directions: tram 1 or 3 to Friedrichsplatz from Station Kassel Wilhelm.