EAT. (German: Essen) is a precisely executed cut to what can be described as the Kunstverein Ruhr’s austere architectural inventory. In its layout, the work appears to be a wedge driven into the exhibition space: Typical inner-city postwar construction, former salesroom, eighty-five square meters of floor space, a large display window facing Kopstadtplatz, three doors, one round column, two square pillars, and three long, parallel-running rows of fluorescent tubes under the ceiling. The walls are painted white, the concrete floor gray.
The “interior” of this wedge, comprised of a twofold diagonal separation of the space by means of two walls incorporated into the space, is inaccessible. The storeroom is equally inaccessible. While the door to it is opened a crack, it is fixed in this position, with the longitudinal edge closed off by a board that has been attached to it. There are triangular black forms that taper to a point above and below the edges of the door leaf. For the curious viewer, any attempt to touch the upper triangular form is like clutching at thin air, as it is a hole.
There are several such factual and imaginary empty spaces in the work, which enable forms of perception in which the viewer becomes the protagonist within art. In the process, forms of intuitive and reflective insight are not arranged in a hierarchy but merge into one another. Peter Friese
Material: 2 drywalls, wall paint, door to the storeroom fixed in a slightly open position