Dislocacion Project
invest & drawwipe

invest & drawwipe is the third part of works on waste and values. All the elements of the installation constitute a room in which privacy is a matter of economics. The conceptual approach is driven by different moments which are inter-related. One of them is inevitably the fact that Chile was declared as the laboratory of the free economy in the early 70ies.  The exemplary story is here the implication of Milton Friedmans neoliberalism after the military coup by General Pinochet on september 11, 1973.  Once an  american/european dream, today becoming reality. Or in other words: Chile as the future of Europe and even of the world.

The installation questions the economic spheres and the strange paradigm changes of the last 40 years. Another aspect of invest & drawwipe is about the endless fabrication of boundaries.

One of the main pieces of the installation is invest, a carriage with a picture showing a silkscreened text. This text has been published as an advertisement in the german newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung FAZ on september 21, 1973.  Entering the room, which is almost blocked by this carriage, one can read in german: Chile: Invest now!

On the backside of the carriage, a series of elements unfold in space, such as a table, a chair, a stop-panel, a bed, a blueprint rack with A0 prints and a blueprint table. Alternately with four video works, the entire setting ends up with the wheel of fortune.

The visitors can sit and read the newspapers, take and read the prints, using the blueprint-table and spin the wheel of fortune.

RELAX (chiarenza & hauser & co) 1983

Marie-Antoinette Chiarenza and Daniel Hauser work together as the group RELAX since 1983. They became known with statements such as ‘thinking alone is criminal’ (1991), ‘artists are no flags’ (1993), ‘I am a woman, why are you not?’ (1995) and ‘you pay but you don't agree with the price’ (1994 - 2005). Since 1997, RELAX rename all public spaces as ‘economic spaces’, aiming to infiltrate them, question economic connections and cultural impacts, and examine social patterns, transforming their socio-political research in photography, installations, drawings, videos and performances.

Personal shows a.o.:
Shedhalle Zurich/ch (1990), Kunsthalle Basel/ch (1992), Capp Street Project San Francisco/usa (1994); Kartause Ittingen Kunstmuseum Thurgau and Kunsthaus Glarus/ch (1994); Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken/ger (1995); Dartmouth College and Hood Museum of Art Hanover, New Hampshire/usa (1999); Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin/ger (2003); Kunsthaus Centre PasquArt Biel-Bienne/ch (2005); Museum Folkwang Essen/ger (2008); Cornerhouse Manchester/uk (2010).

Group shows, projects and contributions a.o.:
Kunsthalle Bern/ch (1999); SWITZERLAND Institute New York/usa (1999); Architecture Biennial, SWITZERLAND Pavilion Venice/it (2000); Fondazione Michelangelo Pistoletto Biella/it (2002); Contemporary Art Center CCA, Kiev/ua (2002); Dunkers Culture Center Helsingborg/se (2003); Ortstermine, City of Munich/ger (2006); Shedhalle Zurich/ch (2003-08); ZKM, Center for Art and Media Technologies, Karlsruhe/ger (2007); Steirischer Herbst Graz/at (2007); Kunsthalle Fri-Art Fribourg/ch (2007); Ursula Blickle Video Archive, Kunsthalle Vienna/at (2007); Kunsthaus Zurich/ch (2008); Kunsthaus Langenthal/ch (2008); Kunsthaus L6 Freiburg i.Br/de (2009); Passengers-Festival, Warsaw/p (2009); Muzeum, Museum of Modern Art, Warschau/p (2009); Dislocation, Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago de Chile/cl (2010).

Publications a.o.:
RELAX (chiarenza & hauser & co) - we save what you give. Ed. by Irene Müller, Ilka and Andreas, Ruby, Emanuel Tschumi, Susann Wintsch.Texts by Irene Müller, Ilka and Andreas Ruby, Katharina Schlieben and Soenke Gau, Philip Ursprung, Susann Wintsch. Monograph with DVD. A project by edition fink at Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg/ger, 2006.

what is wealth? publication to the RELAX-installation at the occasion of Strategic Questions: What is Wealth? Cornerhouse Manchester/uk. Ed. by Cornerhouse Publications Manchester/ch and Gavin Wade, Strategic Questions, Birminhgam/uk, 2010.

www.relax-studios.ch.

/ Created and curated by Ingrid Wildi Merino in Santiago, Chile and curated by Ingrid Wildi Merino and Kathleen Bühler at the Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland. wildimerino.curatorial@gmail.com