Video Guards for Bonn
Museum guards, who are normally in the position of being unnoticed observers watching over artworks, have now become "artworks" themselves. A case of video surveillance: The guards in the monitors watch, welcome, and keep the visitors in check. They say: "Nichts berühren bitte!" (Please don’t touch!) or "Sie haben da was fallen lassen!" (You’ve dropped something!…). They are bored; they clear their throats and blow their noses. The videowork is filmed anew for each specific exhibition site, using the respective museum guards and curator, in this case from the Rheinisches LandesMuseum in Bonn, where the installation was shown from December 04 till February 05.
There are 5 versions of this work "Video Guards" for following institutions:
Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen in Stuttgart, 1993
Karl Ernst-Osthaus-Museum in Hagen, 1994 Kunstmuseum Bern, 2002 Rheinisches LandesMuseum in Bonn, 2004
Kunsthalle Bremen, 2005
Actors: Galina Büttgenbach, Yvonne Freitag, Elke Gossler, Dominik Kleidorfer, Ulrike Schwarz, Frank Günter Zehnder