Exhibitions

Geustermor

Torsten Haake-Brandt
11.10.2000 - 29.10.2000
  • Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the upper floor of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the upper floor of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view Torsten Haake-Brandt: Geustermor. Photo © Edith-Russ-Haus
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GEUSTERMOR is about time and its absence, about work and boredom, art and creativity. 
GEUSTERMOR is a comprehensive collection of the artist's production in the last years. 
GEUSTERMOR is a contraction of the words "gestern, heute morgen" (yesterday, today, tomorrow) and the title of this work in progress.

For many years now, Torsten Haake-Brandt from Hamburg has devoted his artistic practice to the analysis of work and time, their economic and creative value, the relation between boredom and repetition, handcrafted and technical production processes. 
Irony is the artist's strategy, monotony his measure, since complete standstill can only be achieved by constant repetition. In shaking noodles, tatooing frozen chickens, painting in his sleep, or singing car-number-plates, with the singular perseverance of his human body, Torsten Haake-Brandt torpedos the almighty powers of our event society.

Haake-Brandt habitually works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, sometimes adding a sixth or a seventh day in order to meet his weekly due.

His actions circle around the pointlessness of unremitting repetition. Work and art cease to lead to any achievement.
They are totally inefficient and reveal something that the artist calls "zero-creativity".
Productivity he defines as a quantitative generation of the identical.

Continuous repetition annuls the passing of time.
Basically, Haake-Brandt proposes a new definition of time. The concern of GEUSTERMOR is a playful and poetic approach to the time theme.
In the context of media-art, Torsten Haake-Brandt comments on time by leaving out the primarily technically defined and time-dependent media.

Torsten Haake-Brandt had developed a complex version of his GEUSTERMOR installation cycle especially for the two levels of the Edith-Ruß-Haus. This resembles an experimental work place, a presentation of work results, found objects, files, obstructions, and museum reminiscences.
The project doesn't only question the existence of time, it provides proof in word and image for the non-existence of time.

Haake-Brandt's work is a reflection on the artist's identity and day to day artistic reality. 
Nowadays, imagination relies on driving work and commitment, combined with a strong will to survive, rather than on being fed by singular geniuses or ponderous inspiration.
The installation comprises ironical and loving dedications to artist colleagues such as Daniele Buetti, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Carsten Höller.

Today's society requests of its members a professional activity as a life basis. Artistic work likewise underlies this pressure.
The work of Torsten Haake-Brandt addresses a kernel problem for which art has a solution: artists may be unemployed, yet they are never our of work.