Heinrich Lüber
What's up?
22.1. —
6.3.2005
Heinrich Lüber (born in1961, lives in Basel) is regarded as a performer by the art world. Clad in special clothing and using various often customized props, he conducts physical spatial interventions which confront viewers as pictures in space.
In Lüber’s performances, for example, oversized hands protrude from his body as he seems to climb up walls or physically metamorphose into a big spinning top. He likes to include language in his performances, but not with a view to indicating communication but merely the act of speaking, resulting in a ‘linguistic picture’. In perceiving Lüber’s performances, their complex genesis and conceptual conditions tend to be disregarded — this is something which the exhibition at Kunsthaus Baselland does justice to. Lüber’s solo show recontextualizes his artistic oeuvre by having preparatory works such as drawings, individual props displaying material rawness, and a documentary video revise the definition of “artwork”. Lüber’s performances are preceded by numerous drawings and physically or spatially executed and photographed sketches. The immediacy of the drawings provides illuminating insights into the conceptual experimentation with the picture that the performance is to create. Apart from reviewing the pictorial character, executed sketches serve to sound out technical requirements which, together with the selection of clothing, eventually determine the pictorial choice. During the Basel Museum Night, Heinrich Lüber will carry out an outdoor performance (Friday, 21 January, 7.30 pm, 9.30 pm, and 11.30 pm).
Text from Sabine Schaschl