pROLLog


HAMBURGER FILZ (Hamburg felt) *

When Llaura from today on occupies  a small piece of the Hanseatic city state with the EINSTELLUNGSRAUM the commonly suspected associations of her working material can be left outside the door.  Her felt objects do not circle around power and relations, neither do they toy with the memories of the shotdown pilot of a Stuka (a kind of German war plane) Beuys, who survived in felt blankets.

Llaura plays differently.

Her 7 roller skates, in one to one dimension up to oversized, relate to childhood, logically. Colapsed they lie on the ground and pull us down. With a sommersault down to the days of our shorter legs and big dreams. When the toilet bowl was still a throne one could fall off , just shortly conquered and inviting for a view into the distance.
A free undisturbed view. Beyond the hills of the parent's house in Winningen surely there must be America right away, and couldn't have P
etrarca sit in the vinyards of the Mosel and be thinking down from the hills?
Meanwhile the child in the child has gone the path to be a woman and to Hamburg, a Luder ludens, who has converted the stable proboscidians of the Roman enemy into unstable scooters. She throws us a snowball and is happy about the avalanche that takes us off the stable feet. From the depth of the infantile crevasses rise the friendly picture worlds of first mobility and dampen the fall like a cushion of cuddly soft felt crystal.

My scooter and I we were a team. stable ground beneath our both soles, left of wood, right of sand, gras, asphalt. That makes move- ment. Never after did it go forward that fast.

Open your eyes: the stop-sign of the grown-ups comes into sight, a vernissage is a serious matter. "Spielende Kinder" ( words on common signs in Germany, meaning that playing children are around) are a traffic block. But when L.l.S is in front of the gates, they feel as light as fools: with the according freedom. The lady presses us to enter slippery ground, she worships us by putting several layers of transparent foil under her fallen scooters making it ice-like slippery. And like once Hannibal's Alpinists we are supposed to stumble our way between the displayed objects with risky results for balance and friction.

And who adheres to the values?
Do not worry, general Suenner is an emperor with inner grandness. The wellbeing of her cheeky creations go to blazes as far as that she can draw the onlooker only into the experience of her objects. The stumbler falls softly, that is the main thing. With a tube of Pattex (brand name of adhesive) the damage to the art is quickly looked after, there the artist is refreshingly pragmatical and non sensitive. So she already asked in former  opening events to step on felt rugs, to open felted wall doors inclusive the occasional ripping off of the handle that was fixed to it.  So for a long time has she exposed a large textile bulkhead to wind and weather in the harbor of Hamburg. The use of her dysfunctional quotations of uselessness by that is given free again through the backdoor of cheeky staging. As reasonable and obvious as it should be for the cork-exploding esprit of a swinging freethinker.

The thinking-bubbles of not-right traffic sparkle off Llaura's plastic coverings. Her rolling elefants seem to be composed of elements of elementary mechnics: wheels, achses, handle bar. Everything is there but this there is dada. Because naturally the pliability of the material bends the laws of physics to witticism. These scooters are no scooters one feels like quoting another artist.

They are more than that.
 
Memories to a time before one's own, to a warm home and cool air stream against scraped knees. With that the ride in the past does leads right away to a small collision with the felter from Duesseldorf. Because protected - and darn it for that - we did feel  most of the time when we were on our way on the two-wheel-boards. Protected also between the gorges  and mountain tops of a world which probably seemed even bigger than the Alps, through the gaps and craters of it Hannibal once fought himself with 37 elefants. There were some falls and in landing often enough the cushioning was missing. But most of us made it to Rome, even if it then looked more than Waterloo. Things kept rolling like our scooters, if only it was moved enough. And we have grown like those Glorious Seven that lay to our feet now. What could follow after that? We are still allowed to enter this kind of world and those scooters.

Llaura is not like that.
 





Stephan Kubisch / 03/2006
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*This is a German term created by the Hamburg people to express their dislike of political corruption tangle in their city.

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