(Space for Communication, Dr.-Dormagen-Guffanti-Stiftung Cologne) 2002
The Dr. Dormagen-Guffanti Foundation in Cologne, founded by Dr. Dormagen in the 19th century, houses different social services in a park-like setting, including a municipal home for the handicapped, a hospice and the Emmaus-Gemeinschaft (Emmaus Society), which share the generous grounds on the outskirts of Cologne. An annually announced scholarship, which invites fine artists to participate in a six-month’s working stay in residence, is a luxury that the foundation’s advisory board gladly affords. Dr. Dormagen himself was convinced of the stimulating influence and possible healing qualities of art, and he pursued a headstrong form of “art therapy.” From time to time he ordered his patients to sit regularly in front of paintings that were installed especially for this purpose. In the following interview, the Berlin artist Judith Siegmund (the scholarship recipient in 2002) reports about her work with the residents on location. The special “production conditions,” as well as her reflections on her own position as a scholarship holder and artist, played an important role in the considerations that went into the organization of her stay in Cologne.
Andrea Knobloch (infection manifesto)
Judith Siegmund: Exhibition Opening Address, Dr-Dormagen-Guffanti-Foundation Cologne, 2002:
Dear residents,
Dear visitors to the grounds and to the exhibition!
A relatively unusual occurance has taken place: a socially-oriented foundation welcomes artists, makes an apartment and studio available to each, and waits to see what happens. From the opposite perspective, the situation appears as follows: I am offered an arrangement which permits me, as an artist, to come to terms artistically with a new set of surroundings over a period of six months. Suddenly, virtually overnight, I find myself on a premises that is home to the most diverse social institutions, and to an interesting, if also heterogeneous, throng of individuals. The first question that vies for my attention is: what is expected from me in this context? I quickly observe that all of the buildings are occupied with residents and with work activities, that various kinds of therapies, support, counselling, art events, festivities and other highpoints have already been integrated into the everyday lives of the inhabitants. Everything takes its course, all of the existing possibilities have already been taken into account. Everyone around me is working diligently, as in an ant colony. All the more reason to ask myself at the beginning: what is my role within this functioning operation? The decisive point would seem to be that I don't belong here, that I have no occupation, and am hence not part of the totality. I come from "outside," so to speak, and hence enjoy the privilege of having no clearly demarcated task to fulfill. Why then, I went on to ask myself, is an artist procured each year for the premises without being assigned any definite job?
These observations lead me to more general questions concerning the role of the artist in non-artistic areas, which we might refer to – somewhat crudely – as those of society at large. An expectation exists, and a rather substantial one at that. It seems to me that people expect more from artists than from other professional groups that are well represented in the area. Just what was expected in particular, no one has yet been able to explain to me precisely. What seems certain, to begin with, is simply the sense that much is expected of me as an artist.
I now attempt to approach this question from another perspective, that of art history. Up to the present, a substantial role has been played by the notion of the artist as genius, as the favorite of nature. To be a "favorite of nature" means to be gifted with extra-human powers, to be charged with redemptive tasks, to be regarded as a potential leader. All of these ideas and notions have made their appearances in the history of art; in part they are typical of the epoch of Romanticism, when artists and artistic modes of activity were tested for their potential to function as exemplars of a new society. With good reason, many people in the art world distance themselves from such conceptions, which appear today to be exaggerated. Nonetheless, current art production and its interpretation consist largely of the relics of such notions of the (traditionally masculine, needless to say) artist-genius. "Right up to the present, it has remained habitual in contemporary society to regard traits as strengths in the artist that would be considered weaknesses in any non-artist." This citation from Cornelia Klinger is directly applicable to my situation in the Dormagen-Guffanti Foundation:
1. First, I am less qualified than most of the people working on the foundation premises. I possess no therapeutic, pedagogical, nursing or other training. In this sense, my "specialization" is that of dilettante.
2. There is no concrete task area for me. For any other individual, this would be interpreted in negative terms. For the artist, this condition is virtually self-evident.
3. My method of working is subject to my own caprice. No one else is entitled to tell me what I ought to find interesting. Other people, once they have begun something, have to bring it to a "proper" conclusion. As an artist, I can leap like a grasshopper from one theme to the next, moving at will from one person to the next.
This sounds almost as though artistic activity escapes every kind of criticism. "The more the quality of originality in the artist-genius is emphasized, and the weaker the expectation that the artist represents some kind of path-breaking or exemplary function for the wider community, the more completely is she reduced, consequently, to her specialness, but also to her contingency and capriciousness." Translated, this means that the artist receives money and recognition for objects or activities which are, in reality, no longer capable of moving anyone to constructive engagement, because they are solely the manifestations of the unfolding expressive will of the individual artist. In general, but especially in the case of the premises of the Dr. Dormagen-Guffanti Foundation, I regard this way of working – which sets pretensions to artistic self-expression alone in the foreground – to be inappropriate and even boring. For only a confrontation of all of the subjectively-determined "contingency" and fantasy referred to above with concrete questions, observations and contacts drawn from the here and now permits something really interesting to emerge – a "new mixture," so to speak – from the privileged situation of the artist and the point view resulting from that situation. This kind of art production is not as easily comprehended as are the fields of action of other professional fields, and yet it does offer (at least when successful) concrete sites of access and points of departure – on the one hand for residents, on the other for the art public. In this case, and with such an understanding, art may be regarded by the residents as a COUNTERWORLD to the everyday one, one offering something unprecedented, something astonishing, by producing constellations, for example, that would never result from daily life, and which go beyond the level of everyday service provision. For the art public, a COUNTERWORLD might come into being that transcends that which is customarily regarded as "art," something that makes it possible to view the social realm with new eyes. If this occurs in this small exhibition, even in a preliminary fashion, I will be satisfied.
How, in concrete terms, did I proceed?
The studio and café, which were left at my disposal, are both located, symbolically, at the center of the premises. I took these symbolic locales as an opportunity to open the studio for the duration of my stay as a space for communication for all interested residents. During regular Sunday morning meetings, I met with residents from the various houses for video screenings with concluding discussions. To start with, I had offered the program alone, but participants soon began showing up with their own contributions. Today in the studio, documentation about our Sunday meetings is on display, together with works prepared or brought in by residents. My interest here is in the coming together of divergent lifeworlds, as for example on those occasions when a young individual performed a Break Dance for handicapped people, or another resident called for a discussion on the subject of graffiti, or when visitors, for example, presented a video about everyday hostility to foreigners. These meeting were concluded as Sunday brunches with built-in video performances, during which a suitable part was found for each participant, from the clever cook to the guy who cannot sit still in front of the television.
The second part opens today. It represents an attempt to provide an interface between the residents and staff of the foundation premises and the art public. The home for handicapped individuals in the Dr. Dormagen-Haus and the Emmaus-Gemeinschaft (Emmaus Society) are especially interested in a public that might facilitate integration into the core of Cologne society. I see this exhibition, among other things, as an attempt to displace Cologne's center here to the edge of the city for a week, and to offer a dialogue in the form of video presentations. This approach is also the source for the idea of distributing the videos at various locations on the premises. I would like to request that each of you take a flyer with a map and to simply start on your way. If you follow the exhibition plan and the arrows, you will finish by reaching the café, where snacks and drinks will be served.
Judith Siegmund
