~Gelatin/Gelitin/TANTAMOUNTER 24/7

Gelatin

from left, in cap, GELATIN’S GABRIEL VON LOEBELL, and, ALI JANKA, (center), with collector, JOHN HALL, (right) at the closing party for ‘TANTAMOUNTER 24/7’, LEO KOENIG GALLERY, NYC, Nov 23, 2005 .
( …that’s NAOMI FISHER and JIM DRAIN smooching on the left)

The Viennese performance art group, GELATIN put on one of the most intriguing and art smart of the PERFORMA 05 (the First Biennial of New Visual Art Performance, NYC) events. They built a huge live-in “replicating” factory that took over 99% of the gallery space. Gelatin, and their suprise live-in house guest, artist NAOMI FISHER, were completely enclosed, with no windows, and no way out for an entire week. Holed up with a stock of food and lots of raw art & thrift shop materials, they handmade reproductions of objects, which anybody who wanted to, could enter into their “replicating” lair, by way of a little conveyor belt trap door and voila, after a little bit of time, the yellow light bulb would flash on, and the original and the replica were ready to be retreived.

Gelatin now likes their name to be spelled – GELITIN – the story goes that they recently had a show in Japan & that was how their name was spelled & they liked it better like that.

Gelatin-yellow light

Sean Shanahan, who trekked in from Jersey, with his GELATIN ‘Tantamounter 24/7’ replica – that’s the top of the entry port.

more photos from the installation
: GELATIN ‘Tantamounter 24/7’
(scroll down to the bottom of the report – GELITIN photos start at row 19)

Photos: Nancy Smith