Participating artists:Christin Lahr, Jürgen Herzing - Mayor of Aschaffenburg , Thomas Sterna and unknown collaborators
Venue:City Hall City of Aschaffenburg
Dalbergstrasse 15
63739 Aschaffenburg
public urban space,
Aschaffenburger Kunstverein – KunstLANDing
Partner:Jürgen Herzing , City of Aschaffenburg
Aschaffenburger Kunstverein – KunstLANDing
As part of her artistic work, Christin Lahr takes over chairs from mayors, sets up her workplace in the respective city, and provides metaphorical insights into the nature of bureaucracy, economy, money, and power. Through parables, she communicates debt relationships, appreciation and value creation, economic and symbolic capital.
She encourages the citizens of different cities to persuade their respective mayors to surrender their chair in order to take over and own it as artists for a certain period of time. Even the initial request unleashes a cascade of considerations, concerns, convictions, and value debates. Physically and legally, the city's most important chair passes a multiple change of ownership in the course of the action.
Through the FRIENDLY TAKE-OVER and the act of performative possession, Christin Lahr overwrites the chair with her artistic action and returns it after use materially intact and yet "reworked". Through unexpected attentions and care, the protagonist of her action acquires an appreciation from office furniture to art object, which cannot be seen or materially determined, but can be actually possessed.
The artistic surplus value becomes the property of the city as a donation and can be taken into account accordingly in the next inventory. Those who happen to be involved become witnesses of the added value creation as confidants, participants, or collaborators.
All the processes involved are documented by the artist and, like the performative encounters, become part of the work: MACHT GESCHENKE: THE MAKING OF CAPITAL, FRIENDLY TAKE-OVER: CHAIR #20, Aschaffenburg, 2023.
