Re-Institutionalize # 02: EVANGELICAL KINDERGARTEN (2004)

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Soldiner Kiez, Berlin

Excerpts from an interview by Heike Wetzig:

In the evangelical kindergarten St. Stephanus you have presented works by the artist Ondrej Brody: Five paintings made after found childrens pictures and presumably looking exactly like the models. Could you bring your idea a little bit closer?

Ondrej had shown me a documentation of his works. I became attentive to this series which, at the first glance, looked like a mistake in the portfolio and which he had never shown before. I regarded the kindergarten as a good place for the show. Ondrej installed his paintings together with a selection of the childrens works. The installation of the show was very exciting for them, they helped Ondrej to select their own drawings, to clean the walls and to hang the pictures. They also did some real performances in front of the camera, hoping it would be broadcasted on TV… The context in which I make this project, the way I make it and how I mediate it, is interesting for me. A significant question is, every time, how to involve the people in the best way. The installation of the show is the moment when people are actually involved in their space and in the artistic work. Although it is an easy work – to install some pictures in a room – this task causes complex questions and reactions at the very social place.