Incomprehensibly (sm)art .

A 1943 bunker in Berlin, redesigned to a five story, 3,000 sq m exhibition space, has recently (June 2008) become the playground for the private art collection of a self-made communications agency entrepreneur, Christian Boros. This unusual gallery space is only open for views by appointment and holds artists ranging from Hirst to Anselm Reyle, Wilhelm Sasnal and newcomer Thomas Olbricht who is exhibiting "Passion Fruits" until the 3d of May 2010.

If you thought art collectors were unpredictable space aliens probing for interesting new talent, this quote by Boros himself certainly comes close to galactic non conventionality. Poet.

Robert Preece: You put a quote on your website "I collect art that I don't understand.” Could you explain what you mean by that statement?
Christian Boros: I collect art that irritates me. This is not meant as a kind of rejection. It is rather the wish I have, that a work of art changes the limits of my thinking so my perception shifts. This is the only way I can develop myself.

The red tape

We've all got phobias. Some people are afraid of men with beards, some people are afraid of white sheets and some minorities fear spiders. That's right, they have got the very rare case of urban neurosis affecting most women and grown men who have dreamt about having a designer dog - arachnophobia.

Take a moment to picture yourself in your most vulnerable environment, the place where you seek peace and tranquility, for instance your communal garden or... your bedroom. You are getting ready for bed and you get that strange sensation that somebody is watching you. Being indoors you know it cannot be a CCTV surveillance officer eating a bag BBQ nuts who most likely has been following you for the past 14 years, it is definitely an 'analogue presence'. So you turn around, peeking hesitantly with one eye (the right one since you are slightly far sighted on the left). As you glance at the corner by your bed where the negative fung shway energies were leading your suspecting eyeballs, your breath halts upon the sight of the hairy multiple legged one: a spider.

You reach for the extra strong, 24h lasting hair spray or deodorant ( there is no doubt they have the same toxic metallurgical derivants) and you spray the intruder like there was no ozone layer until he has no place to escape other than that one nasty opening in the wall. This is the moment when you get out the big guns: you grab your ultra adhesive red lasso and tape the cauliflower out of the evil bastard's shelter.

P.S.: How do you check if he is still in there?

The display of the red tape in my friend's house was so artistic to me that I could not do less than to consider the image plus 'notis perscribtus' of it a record of performance art.

Recycled stories

Aurora Robson's Artist Statement:

"I am fascinated with the malleability of matter. The forms in my work are derivative of nightmares I had when I was a child. My fodder is junk mail, litter, waste & nightmares. My job is to transform these things into art. My work is a meditative practice in alchemy, enantiodromia, positive spin, acceptance & balance.
 
When there is a negative or downward trajectory of motion inherent to a material, I like to focus my energy on changing that direction. For example, the work I've been doing with plastic bottles -- without intervention, used plastic bottles have basically 2 options: becoming landfill, or maybe getting recycled.  In the past year, I have intercepted approximately 30,000 bottles from the waste stream, turning them into art instead of allowing them to go into landfill, our oceans, or the environmentally costly recycling process.
 
Junk mail shares a similarly depressing fate with the bottles. I have transformed the activity of opening up the mail and finding a depressing mass of garbage and credit card applications into a pleasant experience wherein I am able to discover new batches of art supplies. The language, costly graphic devices and fancy printing used in junk mail also give it a persuasive, positive and personal flavor, which I prefer to use in my art. My practice is essentially about recognizing and embracing new possibilities while encouraging others to do the same."