Speaking of Her

CR 104. Year 1970/1993

Speaking Of Her Jochen Gerz Cr 104 012 Web

De résister à la tentation de remplir cette page avec une description d’elle ou d’exprimer une quelconque volonté de me faire accompagner pour y aller ou de fournir ici la preuve de mes capacités ...

Bei seinen Bespiegelungen des Innen nimmt er die objektivierende Reflexion des Außens zu Hilfe.

Detlef Blümler 1989.

“I'm interested in the non-visual intermediate zone … which is neither text nor image”. Gerz demonstrates this absence of interlocking in communication by various activities - a conversation in two languages in which the partners do not understand each other's language, the exchange of objects which only find their place in a subjective spectrum of meaning so that the act of exchanging does not correspond to a simple communicative act. Here, understanding always requires the ability to emphasize and an imaginative capability. In contrast to politically involved artists of the 60's and 70's who considered art as a weapon to be wielded in the everyday debates in the arena of social policy, Gerz pursues a more radical approach by continually calling communications systems into question not as neutral instruments but as elements of an existing order.

Hans-Werner Schmidt 1999

Categories

Installation

Wall telephone (black), answering machine, audio cassette (speakers: Penelope Fletcher, Ian Marshall, duration of spoken text 58 seconds)

Whoever picks up the telephone hears a male and a female voice. Both recite versions of the same text on closeness and distance, the female voice in English, the male voice in French. The text was written in 1970 (See the publication: Jochen Gerz resurrection, edizioni amodulo, Brescia 1970). A first version of the installation was realized at the exhibition Avant le bip sonore at the Galerie Crousel-Robelin in Paris in 1993.

Exhibitions

Paris 1993 (text available only via phone). Vancouver (Newport Beach 1995. Purchase 1996. Winnipeg 1996/97). Wiesbaden 1997. Rotterdam 1998 (Barcelona 1998. Tourcoing 1999)

Bibliography

I: Resurrection 1970, p. 9. Wiesbaden 1997, pp. 9, 15-17. Rotterdam 1998, pp. 34-35

II: Rosen 1, 1993. Dering 1997. Haase 2, 1997. Melten 3, 1997. Casaviva 11/1998. Lapiz 12/1998. Avui, 17.9.1998. El pèriodico 18.9.1998.

Access general bibliography

My name is Jochen Gerz