“Nihao”!(“Hello”in Chinese), the organizing committee for the first international award for public art on behalf of Gregor Schneider, who unfortunately can’t be here now, I want to convey his and also my, sincere thanks and pleasure for the nomination and invitation to this remarkable event. We hope that we can contribute this and these days to the approach on sensing public art globally. In the following I will give an overview on Gregor Schneider’s artistic approach and interest in creating, respectably making place within his cultural practice so that 21 Beach Cellswill become obvious within this relational contextual frame. In the end you will see a short film of Bondi Beach and 21 Beach Cells shot by Gregor Schneider this sculpture was installed in BondiBeach in Australia in 2007.
Gregor Schneider (born 5 April 1969, in Rheydt) is a German artist, whose main area of work is constructed rooms. In 2001, he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for his infamous work Totes Haus u r exhibited at the German Pavilion. Gregor Schneider studied from 1989 to 1992 at several German Art Academies including: the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Art Academy of Düsseldorf) and at KunstakademieMünster (Academy of Fine Arts Münster), and at the HochschulefürbildendeKünste (University of Fine Arts Hamburg). From 1999 to 2003, he served as a guest professor / educational activities at several art schools including: De Ateliers in Amsterdam, the Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. Gregor Schneider has been nominated as professor of sculpting to the University of Art Berlin in 2009. Since December 2012 he is teaching as a professor at the Munich Art Academy.At the age of 16, Schneider had his first solo exhibition entitled, PubertäreVerstimmung, at the gallery Kontrast in Mönchengladbach. Since the beginning of the 1990s he has worked with rooms in galleries and museums. He conceives the rooms as three-dimensional, sculptures that can be walked through, which oftentimes hide or alter the existing gallery- and museum rooms; the rooms he works with are existing rooms he finds in different dwellings or domestic buildings. In 1985 he began dismantling and rebuilding rooms in an apartment building in Rheydt, which he entitled, Haus u r.

Since 1985, Schneider has been working elaborately on the house on UnterheydenerStraße in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt. The "u r" refers to UnterheydenerStraße und Rheydt. Gregor Schneider created replicas of the existing rooms by building complete rooms inside of other rooms each consisting of walls, ceilings and floors. These doubled rooms are not visible as rooms within rooms to the viewers. Additionally he slowly moves the rooms out of sight by employing machines that push ceilings or complete rooms. Hollow and interspaces are the results of the form of the installations. Some rooms become inaccessible, because they are hidden behind walls and some have been isolated by concrete, plumbing, insulation or sound absorbing materials. Via outside fixed lamps, different times of the day have been simulated. The rooms are numbered consecutively (u r 1 -) for clear distinction. At the beginning the originals rooms have been all areas of a house: a bedroom, a coffee room, a lumber-room, a kitchen, a corridor, a cellar. That’s the kitchen from 1985. Since the middle of the 1980s visitors of the Haus u r have been reported as having had frightening experiences inside the house. Here is the total isolated guest room. You see it’s from 1995.

You could describe Schneider’s working procedure as follows: Gregor Schneider worked himself away from the picture as capturing to the constructed room. He transferred the so called environment as well as the art of installation into actually constructed rooms consisting of walls ceiling and floor. As a result rooms have been created that were exact replicas of existing rooms. It could also happen that a visitor enters one of the rooms and does not even realize that he is in a room inside a room, a room built around a room. Examples for those kinds of rooms would be the bedroom, the coffee room, or the guest room you just saw Gregor Schneidercaused rooms taken from the house were rooms Totes House, or Death House. The project Haus u r was started in 1985 as I mentioned and still exists today. This is another image called love alcove which is from 1995. So now I come to the Totes Haus in Venice.

In 2001, Gregor Schneider won the "Golden Lion" at the 49th Biennale in Venice, with his solo exhibition, "Totes Haus u r Venedig 2001". UdoKittelmann, at that time, director of the KölnischenKunstverein invited the artist to create solo exhibition in the German pavilion. Within three months time Schneider built a Totes Haus u r inside the pavilion, he transported by ship a total of 24 original rooms using100 packing pieces with a combined weight of 150 tons from Rheydt to Venice; Schneider refers to the rooms, which he has built out of the Haus u r or which have been rebuilt at another place, as Totes Haus u r.

Schneider rebuilt the rooms inside the German pavilion into a similar house with double walls and double floors on the ground in a house just as he did in Rheydt. He remodeled a late 19th century entrance with columns as standard door entrance with a letterbox-slot and aged doorbell panels on the side. Inside windows could not be opened to the outside. "One builds what one no longer knows", Schneider commented on his installation. So, that’s a staircase in Totes Haus u r in Venice. This is also the staircase. Within the Biennale the work has also been interpreted as a subtle political declaration, because the German pavilion building from 1909 has been often considered as the most "intimidating" building "in the area of the Giardini". So that’s the cellar in the Totes Haus u r. In 2003, the Tote Haus u r was constructed for one year inside the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA).

Now I come to the CUBE project. You see a graphic ellaboration from 2005 called CUBE Venice on the Michaels Square. In 2005, Gregor Schneider was officially invited to realize the CUBE VENICE 2005 at the Piazza di San Marco in Venice during the 2005 Biennale. Shortly before the opening of the exhibition the sculpture was rejected due to its "political nature". CUBE VENICE 2005 was intended to be an independent sculpture in form, function and appearance, inspired by the Kaaba in Mecca, the most holy place of Islam, the destination of millions of believers who make the pilgrimage every year. Kaaba means "cubic building". This artwork became an international controversy discussed widely in the media. As a result it was rejected shortly before being realized in the courtyard of the Hamburger Bahnhof, museum of contemporary art in Berlin. Finally Schneider realized his work CUBE HAMBURG 2007 between the old and new buildings of the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Under the artistic direction of the curator, Dr. Hubertus Gaßner, director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, different aspects of a painting from 1878-1935 were analyzed in an exhibition entitled "The Black Square – Hommage to Malevich". To convey the different aspects of the "The Black Square" the exhibition featured further works by Malevich as well as works of his contemporaries, scholars, and critics.

The CUBE HAMBURG 2007 has been used as an inter-religious platform. AhmetYazici, the deputy president of the alliance of the Islamic communities in North-Germany, congratulated the artist "on his project which fosters understanding amongst international cultures". Yazici exclaimed, "Believe me, there is no Muslim community, which would mind it." Islam does not forbid the replication or copy of the Kaaba in Mecca.

Gregor Schneider said with regard to the origin of the idea of the cube: "It is not my idea, but the idea of a believing Muslim. He saw the connection to the Kaaba, to this building, which, in my view, is one of the most fascinating and beautiful buildings of in the history of mankind". Schneider made the following remark about the work: "The sculpture demands something from every participant. The box summons us all, it allows me to look past the critical reporting and to call on the public, something I didn’t have to do before. It challenges Muslims, which didn't know this way of repproachement before, and it shows something to the visitors of the western world they have never seen before. In the history of Islam Abraham/Ibrahim is the constructor of the Kaaba. All three Monotheistic religions can identify with this building very well."

Still, although CUBE Hamburg showed his potential in creating peaceful dialogue in Hamburg are further realizations are rejected internationally, until now. This is the next project I want to introduce, although from 2007, Life on Bondi Beach, which is called White Torture, WiesseFolter in German. In 2006 Gregor Schneider started reconstructing rooms from the highest security wing from Guantanamo Bay, based on pictures taken from the internet. With only a handful of information and without any additional interpretation rooms were then fully recreated, including also the so-called black site torture chambers. Rooms that have not been accessible to the audience have been made accessible through artistic replicas for example in the art gallery in 2007, which you see in the image, in Dusseldorf. Without any signs of life and their high gloss and abstract appearance, the rooms give the impression of an independent and disturbing existence. The pureness of the museum room turns into eeriness and the wanted qualities of the White Room, White Cube, are suddenly perceived critically. “END”, this is the next project I want to introduce.

From November 8, 2008 to September 6, 2009, Gregor Schneider’s 14 meter high, black outdoor-sculpture "END" was accessible to the public. The artist built "END" in front of the museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach. The sculpture was connected to the museum and served as an alternative entrance. Before walking through the "END" the visitor had to sign a release form that stated that they understood they were entering of their own accord into an environment with "steep ladders, narrow and/or totally dark rooms which may cause physical and/or mental impairment". After signing the declaration the visitor was allowed to enter the room-ensemble "END" by a huge ladder through a black entrance. In most parts of the room the total darkness caused the visitor to lose all sense of orientation in the space. The only possibility for the visitor to orient themselves was by feeling the walls of the corridor. Four rooms out of the Haus u r were integrated into the "END".

Now I come to Bondi Beach, 21 Beach Cells, Sydney Australia, 2007. It was later in 2009 also it was realized Arcadia Beach, 21 Beach Cells. In 2007 under the corresponding title Bondi Beach 21 Beach Cells.

A 400 square meter large installation composed of 21 identical cells sprung up at one of the most famous beaches on the Australian east coast, the Bondi Beach, under the correspondent title Bondi Beach, 21 beach cells. This to the exhibition place synthesizedartwork questions "the ideal of a casual, egalitarian leisure-loving society", even there "elsewhere beachballers and backpackers, marathon swimmers and wedding couples define the image".

Gregor Schneider was invited to Australia by JohnKaldor, an independent curator, collector, and patron who has been inviting individual artists to Australia since the 1970’s, to realize Bondi Beach. The indeterminate purpose and function of the 21 Beach Cells positioned them between comfort and isolation, safety and imprisonment. The work’s labyrinthine structure became apparent once people were inside. The transparent walls gave a false impression of expanded vision and orientation. Some doors were locked and required visitors to retrace their steps to the exit; others led into open cells, creating confusing paths and passageways.

To the question why Gregor Schneider constructed Bondi Beach, he responded: “after all the controversy over the CUBE I wanted to realize something more relaxed.” He soon noticed what importance and symbolic meaning the beach has to the national identity of Australia. Schneider stated that the influence for the project was from an article he read about the Cronulla race riots, which occurred on 11 December 2005 when a crowd of around 5000 young Anglo-Australians descended on the Sydney suburb to ‘reclaim the beach’, leading to violent attacks on people of Middle Eastern appearance. A backlash from the Lebanese community resulted in a pervasive environment of fear and segregation, including a police ‘lock-down’ of the local area. “It made me think about Australian national identity of which the beach is certainly a part of. If you do something in Australia it should be about the beach.” Through the cells the beach gets order. Germans are accustomed to race riots but they were amazed by the fact that those riots occurred on a beach. Schneider, a master of the psychology of space he has observed the construction of a grid of 21 cells and wire cages of the seven sections of the beach. Visitors of the breach were free to enter and occupy the 4 to 4 meter cells, which were open to the sky and connected by doors. Each of the cells contained amenities for visitors – an air mattress, beach umbrella and black plastic garbage bag. Asked if he considered himself a political artistic, Schneider said: “no he was a contemporary artist.” He creates work that is about what is going on in the world today. It is not limited to Australia or to political issues. It was fascinating, Schneider said, how quickly the cells were positively accepted by the beach goers. Entire families started to relax inside of the cells. Surfers put their boards in them, some of the visitors found shelter under the umbrellas and others put their children there to play. The beach creates an image of freedom and restrictions at the same time. Bondi Beach used to define territories and to define in a sense. There then was a very contradictory image the cells, right in the middle of the beach, were inhabited voluntarily. Critics said the shadow image of Guantanamo Bay camp and Australia’s own immigration detention centers became a site for relaxation. 21 Beach Cells captured the atmosphere of the time, an environment of global terrorism, detention of illegal immigrants and the recent Cronulla riots, questions Australia’s egalitarian self-image. In 2009 the 21 Beach Cells have also been built at the Arcadia Beach.

Arcadia Beach 21 Beach Cells showed the beach visitors, using the cells in a very similar way to the visitors at Bondi Beach. Thank you for your attention, we can now, shortly at least, see the moving image, so you get the idea. But I don’t know about the time, we don’t have to.