EINSTELLUNGSRAUM
Talk of Hajo Schiff at the occasion of the opening
of the exhibition on 02.Juli 2001 

Elke Suhr, Claudia Hoffmann, Sonia Jakuschewa, Llaura Sünner 
to intro- duce of Professor emeritus Jan J.Vogeler

**This evening is a rather daring project in its disparity which is hard to mediate spontaneously. Because we are dealing  not only with the work of one male or female or several artists, but in four chapters about the theoretical background which is the basis for the combination of artistic and political attempt which was choosen today: 

1. the place 
2. the female artists 
3. the programmatic title of the exhibition and 
4. the honorary guest Professor Jan J. Vogeler.
 

*To 1: This place is a former flower shop, in which now the
second exhibition is being opened. The artist Elke Suhr has rented the rooms and changed them into
EINSTELLUNGSRAUM für Kunst  im Straßenverkehr. She adds the subtitle ,agency for arranging projects between car drivers and pedestrians' to her project. 
This is not at all as obvious as it may sound simple. Fact is, 
that Elke Suhr has been working artistically-critically for years about the as much obvious as not admitted culturally leading function of the automobile in our society. She even has found a formal similarity of philosophical=mythical- alche- mistical world models and the Benz' motor vehicle - at least when you put the latter in a vertical position. Said extremely abbreviated this comparison derives from the central human, who has below or behind him/her- self the fiercy oven of hell (the motor), and in front of him/her the bright promise of the paradise, of the understanding of the abstract ideas, the archetypes, yes even god himself (the headlights and the view through the front window). 




The car becomes part of the movement of the matter to spirit; the only seemingly profane transport is the longing for purification in light and for transformation in infinity. These parallelisms are relatively complicated and cannot be explained in detail here. But already 1964 no one less than Roland Barth has pointed to the car as 'precise equivalent of  the great gothic cathedrals'.

The basic idea that the automobile gives one the big freedom, in any direction but especially behind the horizon,is with the covering of the landscape with highways and the blockage of the cities with automobiles, has become simply frozen potentiality. 
The car has thus become a media: More and more it serves less for mobility, it has become an allegorical plastic, which means mobility. Especially the American group of artists  'ant farm' has been pointing this out with spectacular perfor- mances ever since the 70s, also Wolf Vostells' car concreted in on a parking lot in Cologne or the car moved up onto a church tower have made that a theme - and here, in the basement, Elke Suhr shows with a video of a wheel turning on the spot such movement potentialities rather icon-like.
massive car addiction makes the word part 'self'(which 'auto' infactmeans) obsolete - besides maybe in the sense that at the end of the rush for the horizon beyond the horizon, I arrive at myself from behind.
Instead of all of us becoming a deus ex machine , we only became a diabolus in machine. We all know that, but almost nobody wants to conclude from this. With the example of the Wandsbeker Chaussee outside one can experience lively in which extreme manner automobility has changed the public space. What dramatic loss that means and that this not necessarily had to happen or has to be anyone can notice finally who has been in Venice for some time. But maybe a change will happen which not necessarily depends on individual understanding, but rather thanks to the second industrial revolution: meanwhile we not only are stuck in a traffic jam, but also in a state of change: the most looked at glas pane meanwhile is no longer the windshield window but the screen.

 
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