The Latest at Goethe

The Berlin artist Tino Sehgal gets the museum in motion. He has attendants singing and dancing, shows slow motion kisses and involves visitors in philosophical debates. By Mirko Heinemann

It is possible to look at a work of art by Tino Sehgal, but it reacts to the viewer. The first impression of This Situation for example is that of a room with empty walls, in which there is a group of people. They move slowly and converse with one another. If the visitor comes closer, he or she is greeted in chorus with the words, “Welcome to this Situation.” One member of the group quotes a sentence by a thinker from philosophy or economics, Karl Marx or Jean-Jacques Rousseau. A new discussion breaks out and the visitor, right in the middle of it, is expected to take part in the debate: “What do you think?”

The work This Situation, which is presently touring Goethe-Instituts in eastern Europe and southern Asia, functions this way or similarly. Its creator is 35 years old and already world famous. Tino Sehgal has exhibited at the Venice Biennial, at Frieze Art in London, at the Manifesta in Frankfurt and at the Biennial in Moscow. For the 50th anniversary of the New York Guggenheim Museum, he removed all of the works exhibited there from the walls to show his own works: over one hundred performers getting the visitors involved in philosophical discussions and The Kiss, a couple kissing in slow motion. The New York art critics reacted with delight.

Now, he is sitting at the Goethe-Institut with slightly tousled hair, rubbing his chin thoughtfully when asked why he does not allow any photos or films to be taken of his work. “The situative is the core of my work,” he says. “It must be personally participated in.” Unlike the art hewn in stone or captured on canvas by sculptors or painters, although his works are transient, his idea is not. Tino Sehgal is considered the originator of a new, “immaterial” art form. One could see his work as part of a mutual tradition with situationism and the happenings of the fifties and sixties; his body of thought is what makes him a revolutionary. To wit, Tino Sehgal considers objects superfluous. “We want something immaterial from material things,” he says. “So, why take the detour via objects?”

Tino Sehgal is already well known in the art world of the western hemisphere. Now, the Goethe-Institut is presenting his work to the audience of eastern Europe and southern Asia. Until the middle of December his work This Situation will be on tour via Tehran, Mumbai and Bangalore to New Delhi, where a large part of his extended family lives. His father is Indian and his mother is German. He grew up in international cities: in London, Paris and Düsseldorf. Today, Tino Sehgal lives in Berlin, where he completed a degree in economics before training in dance at the Folkwang School in Essen. They are two entirely different fields, which he congenially integrates in his work.

Leisurely journey through Siberia

His relationship to the art world is unconventional, marked by subtle irony. In a work shown at the German pavilion of the 2005 Venice Biennial Tino Sehgal had museum attendants dance about the visitors, singing, “Oh, this is so contemporary!” The performance received not only positive responses. Critics complained of a lack of deeper meaning, others described it as “charlatanry.” Nonetheless, it was Tino Sehgal’s breakthrough.

Those who wish to purchase his works get nothing. No contract, not even a script. They must be satisfied with a verbal agreement and employ performers instructed and authorized by the artist to stage the respective work. Environmentally minded, Tino Sehgal has resolved never to take airplanes. For many internationally active artists this self-imposed handicap would be a major problem. Instead, Tino Sehgal emphasizes the leisurely character of a journey by train through Siberia; a wonderful way to work on new ideas. He and his wife and child travelled by ship to his Guggenheim show in New York.

The journey of This Situation to India will take place without the artist. Four of his staff members will train the interpreters on site and manage the realization. Tino Sehgal has to give up control over his work, which triggers ambivalent feelings in him. Certainly, he admits, something could be said in the debates that he does not support. “I may find that difficult personally, but as an artist I find it very interesting.”

He keeps in touch with his staff from Berlin and participates in video conferences. At the same time, he is busy on his next work. Next summer he will present it at the Tate Gallery in London as part of a solo show, which is also being supported by the Goethe-Institut. What will we see there? Tino Sehgal laughs, refers to his professional secrecy and divulges not a single detail. The artist needs no advertising. Wherever works by Tino Sehgal can be experienced, they speak for him.

“This Situation” on tour: October 2011 in Belgrade, Ankara, Tiflis, November 2011 in Tehran, December 2011 in Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, New Delhi and from 17 July until 28 October 2012: Tino Sehgal in the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London.