Berlin, Bangalore, Tate Modern: Tino Sehgal’s „This Situation“
The dancer and economist Tino Sehgal refuses to create physical objects, yet he still makes artworks that can be presented in museums, galleries and at art fairs. They can even be purchased. In place of objects that are created for eternity, he uses fleeting gestures, conversation and song. In his resource-saving productions, he questions the object-oriented consumer culture of the Western hemisphere and presents responsible alternatives. Catalogues, photographs, films – these products of the contemporary art world are missing in Tino Sehgal’s work even at a secondary level. His works only exist in oral culture and in the visitors’ memory.
“Welcome To This Situation”
In 2007 in his “This Situation”, Tino Sehgal declared conversation to be a work of art: not just any old dialogue, but a conversation based on strict rules that could set off in completely different directions. In 2007, the year of inauguration, Tino Sehgal described “This Situation” as a discursive coming-out, a playful salon and as a history painting of our time; Jerry Saltz, critic of the New York Magazine, is an enthusiastic supporter of this work.
In “This Situation”, the visitor is confronted with a group of six casually-dressed people who are deep in conversation about philosophy – ‘players’, as Sehgal calls them. Every visitor who enters the room is welcomed with the words “Welcome to this situation!” Then the players move in slow motion to a different position whilst citing from 450 years of intellectual history without mentioning the authors.
Philosophically-trained visitors may recognise one or other author; an audience accomplished in art history might identify poses echoing famous masterpieces such as Manet’s “Breakfast in the Open Air”. Other visitors are left to engage in verbal discourse. Many quotes refer to society’s change from a scarcity society to an affluent society, to the possibilities of self-determination or to shaping one’s relationship to others, or refer to the term “Situation”. Depending on the given circumstances, these situations are constantly being re-constituted: in “This Situation” every visitor sees, hears and experiences a different work of art.
From Berlin to Bangalore
By now this and other projects by Tino Sehgal have been presented in most major galleries in North America and Western Europe, but hardly ever in Southeast Europe, and never in India, the homeland of Tino Sehgal’s father. In October 2011 four interpreters start an unusual overland journey using only trains, boats and busses from Berlin all the way to Bangalore. Along the 10,000km route several Goethe-Institutes will host “This Situation” from two to four days and up to five hours at a time.
Goethe-Institutes in cities such as Ankara, Tbilissi or New Delhi become institutions where non-regulated dialogue is made possible by creating ‘conversational’ salons of the present. The dialogue takes place not only between the players and the visitors but also amongst the players themselves. At every stop the team from Germany is complemented by three or four interpreters from the respective countries. Louise Höjer, one of Tino Sehgal’s trusted collaborators, will rehearse with the full team in each Goethe-Institute. Hence, at every stop of the tour, a new team is put together and new situations are created simply because the origins, the cultural background and the culture of conversation of the players and visitors differ radically from each other.
Tino Sehgal as well as the players from Germany will not travel by plane but overland – mainly by train and bus. This will certainly not be an easy task, bearing in mind that Berlin and Bangalore are 10,000km apart and that there are several challenging borders to be crossed. Back in Europe, Tate Modern will show Tino Sehgal’s work in the Turbine Hall, supported by the Goethe-Institut. The exhibition opens on 17th July 2012 and runs until 28th October 2012.
