GEORG BÜTOW
PERFORMANCES
LIMINALITY 2019 Concept, Director, Performance
Möbelhaus von A- Z, Berlin. curated by Nils Pegel
VERNISSAGE
MÖBELHAUS VON A–Z Allerstr 16 – 12049 Berlin 24/05/19
8 AM
A constant state of exception, established by ever menacing catastrophes (financial meltdown! political irrationality! refugee crisis!), cements the status quo of global inequality and rat race. The way to imagine a non- dystopian future is impossible without leaving the given patterns of thinking and behavior. But how so, if socioeconomic reality is suffocating? LIMINALITY is a state of openness that occurs in rites of passage. During the "liminal stage", the participant stands at the threshold between the previous way of structuring identity, time or community, and a new way, which completing the rite establishes.
CONTEXT
In 1956, the Japanese artist Murakami Saburo, member of the Gutai group, had a fight with his 2- years old son. After sending him out the room, the son re- entered the room by busting through the rooms Japanese paper walls. Saburo felt for his sons anger and used the idea for his literal „break through“ Performance named PASSING THROUGH. The Performance was a reaction on Japanese post- war living conditions, suffocated by the guilt of fascism, war and war crimes, the horror of atomic war and the ages of occupation. Saburo found a strong image for breaking free by running and breaking his way through a series of lined up paper walls (Perlman, 2013).
In 2018, it feels like me and my generation are facing a dire and suffocating outlook. Trapped in a post- idealist, post- utopian society tending to give in to utilitarianism, neoliberal ́s total capitalism pressures not only Western societies, but Eastern, African, the Middle Eastern, all the worlds societies. Future outlooks seem commonly dark, dehumanizing or even dystopian. Total capitalism keeps people unfree and afraid, alongside an uncanny „pre- catastrophe“ feel (compared to Saburo ́s post- catastrophe feel): constant crisis menacing (financial meltdowns, political irrationality, refugee panic and so forth), cements the status quo of inequality and rat race. (Trojanow, 2013)
PERFORMANCE
The Performance consists of a line- up of 5 consecutive doors that are fixed in a wooden construction and that get smashed in, broken down, one after another. Actions include kicking them down, even using an axe and a chainsaw to pass through, necessary through the fact that the doors are all locked. The action is performed with drive and energy, anger even, but without haste. The Performance is an act of destruction, of raw power, it is hard physical labor, exhausting and hard to predict how long it will take and if it is possible at all to smash in all the doors. It is noisy, possibly scary, and enters the space through its fragments evolving from the action. The doors ́ line- up is a selection of different material and colors. The Performance is thought to be the opening event of exhibiting an installation including the remnants of the performance: The line- up of smashed through doors, alongside exhibited with the used tools, completed by a sound recording from the Performance played as a loop. I find it ideal to leave doors and fragments untouched after the Performance.
DESIGN
I have put together imagery to make the idea more perceivable. First Saburo performing PASSING THROUGH, the following sketches show my door set- up for LIMINALITY. The amount of doors depends on the space available to perform and exhibit.
CREATIVE INDUSTRIES 2015-2016 Concept, Director, Performance
WITH ÓSCAR SILVA. Shown in Public Space, London, UK
CREATIVE INDUSTRIES, with Òscar Silva, is a relational aesthetics take on capitalism and the creative industries. It consists of a pop- up store in public space, open 9-5, that sells IDEAS. Helped by 2 books: Soeren Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling, and an INSECTS GUIDE; and series of costumes thought to help get into thinking, two Performers sell ideas to whatever topic suggested by the audience for money. The wide range of ideas includes life hacks, ideas to be proposed to museums (one of which actually got accepted by the Victoria& Albert Museum London), photography and fashion project ideas, ideas on how to find real girlfriend and ideas on how to solve delicate situations like being married but being in love with someone else at the same time.
TRANSFORMATIONS 2016 Performance
WITH ANNA DRIFTMIER. Shown at Central Saint Martins Industry Days 2016
Naked bodies- clay- water- black color- red color
35 minutes
Reference to the French Performance Artist Oliver Sagazan
SELF PORTRAIT 2015 Concept, Performance
5 days long performance painting at Archive Gallery, London, as part of HUMAN NATURE EXHIBITION, curated by Natahsa Arselan
live art self portrait based on Zizek´s Lacanian interpretation of desire as lack.
Desire is the fuel of our human nature, our drive. But due to Zizek, desire is empty: „Desire´s desire is to desire“. I want to depict it in color and action, to make it perceivable. I want to portrait human behavior masked as a self- portrait. My drive, to me, seems to run in a repeating color sequence, a dramaturgy of emotions. The performance is to paint a room or a wall in the following sequence: WHITE (completion/ perfection), GREY (unsatisfied, bored), BLACK (disgrace, depression), RED (action, aggression), BLUE (the blues), YELLOW (happy and fresh), GREEN (balanced, hopeful), then starting all over again, in a loop.
I will use a big roll on a stick, paint in straight lines from top to bottom. In this way, the paint will be dry when I arrive at the starting point, so I can overpaint it.
SELF PORTRAIT is a multi- layered, moving monochrome. As color layers get thicker and thicker, it becomes a sculptural work. The duration is the opening hours of the exhibition. I will collaborate with the sound designer and engineer Joel Enzo rate for this piece.
The relative slowness of painting stands in contradiction with the body: The body as the the active, the wall as the passive element. The body gets exhausted, the wall, as the desire never will. My aim is to „breathe out“ my stupidity in this action, to cleanse myself from it, and aim for a cathartic effect on the audience.
THE BENJAMIN PIECE 2014 Concept, Performance
I moved to London in autumn 2014, and the vibe of the city was a shock. Too much stress, so many restrictions, and a lot of people that bear that in their faces. I was visiting a lectured called "Philosphers on Art" and was deeply moved by Walter Benjamin. A genius thinker, and even from my home town, his words and thoughts gave me the comfort that I lacked. Benjamin, my prof explained to me, was convinced that at any time, something fantastic could happen, and that would be the emancipation of mankind. I was euphoric, as I saw exactly what was London missing: A positive surprise, as I called it. So I started to surprise people positively: I asked strangers and workers at the community center in Westminster where I lived, if I could invite them for a day off, I would take them to the seaside, and by the sea, we would have fish n chips and a beer. In the evening we would return. The One- on Ones have no documnetation, for privacy reasons. The photos shows me holding a presentation on my day trips at Central Saint Martins University.