The days have become shorter and colder, but the sun is still shining. Packed warmly (yes I already have started wearing some more layers of clothes, scarfs and gloves…) we ventured off for a long walk in our favourite little forest outside of Berlin. After all, yesterday was public holiday here in Germany. And I got a little time to play and make some art celebrating the beautiful and strong colours of summer.
I jut love the red berries one finds here and always wanted to use them in my artworks. Now I finally did.
Red Star, blessing and thanking all the corners of the universe for its natural abundance and growth.
Unfortunately the wind was so strong that my original ideas did not work out and in the end I arranged this star flat on a tree stump, but almost could not photograph it fast enough before the wind blew it away again.
And here is a little bouquet for you! Because you are wonderful!
Intervention Against Tasteless Wall Decorations in Hotels and Holiday Apartments.(Part 7) Intervention gegen geschmacklose Wanddekoration in Hotelzimmern und Ferienwohnungen.(Teil 7)
Since 2010 I have secretly been slightly altering tasteless or boring hotel or holiday apartment art whenever I had the chance to.
Gänseblümchen A (finished intervention)
Our bungalow on the island Poel in the Baltic ocean was small, but had a few typical holiday bungalow decoration gems on offer. The colourful ceramic plate was by far the most classy and valuable piece of ‘art’, but it was chipped on the side – probably the reason why it ended up as decoration in the bungalow.
Gänseblümchen A (Original plate without intervention)
I decided that the alteration should be simple, easy to remove and just change the viewing experience slightly. I had some red tape and after some deliberation I decided a text element would be a great addition to the abstract and organic design of the plate. On the lawn in front of the building thousands of daisies started growing and I really like their German name: Gänseblümchen. The letters for the word were cut out from the 1cm broad tape and stuck to the plate.
Gänseblümchen A (Detail)
Gänseblümchen A
Coloured sticky tape on found porcelain plate in a holiday bungalow on the island Poel.
approximately 45cm in diameter
July 2013
Work in progress
Disclaimer: It has become a habit of mine, to subtly alter and improve the decoration in hotels and holiday appartments when I have the opportunity. I do this with respect to the owners and future guests. I do not intend any harm and hope that it will put a smile on people’s faces who notice.
Usually I either do not understand it, or it is boring or I just do not feel like watching for what feels like a lifetime to ‘get’ it. And yet, I have been lured into making my own video art. At least I hope that my video art is short and easy to understand. And if you do not understand it, at least it will have been so short, that you hopefully will not feel like you have wasted half your day on it.
And so, today I would like to introduce to you one of the works of my last exhibition, Walking in Circles. The work is conceptualised to be running continuously without any stops. So much for me disliking long videos… 😉 Don’t worry, in reality it is only an 18 second clip, looped and presented to you here in a bite-size piece of 3 minutes (or shorter if you press the stop button 😉 ). After you have watched the video, please feel free to read on, as I share my thoughts behind the work below.
A Meditation On Life and Change
This is a meditative work, where seemingly nothing changes, no matter how long you keep watching. When watching a video, we somehow expect that something new will happen, that there is a story to be told, a new action introduced or at least a beginning and an end. This video is moving along, but nothing changes. I could have been walking for 10 minutes or 24 hours, but you will not know. And there is no end, unless you leave the room or press the Stop button.
This could have a calming effect. Just like the cycles of nature, or day and night following each other without fail. So if you have a lot of turbulence in your life, this video could bring calm to it. It provides repetitive, calming stability and presence. Step for step, circle for circle you can let yourself be drawn into the moment and know that the important things will always remain constant. The cycles of nature will turn. The sun will rise again. You can rest, slow down and trust the process.
This could also have a very different effect on you. You might feel stuck in a rut. You might yearn for a change. But the video does not provide that, no matter how long you stare and wait. In this case, watching the video could be a meditation, leading you to the understanding, that if you want something to change, YOU need to change. Unless the person walking in the circles actually makes the conscious decision to step out of that ring into the next, everything will stay the same.
Are you willing to step outside of the circle? And change the course of history?
Who is afraid of the clown? Apparently enough people to have an own term for this fear: Coulrophobia.
In our holiday bungalow on Poel we found a children’s porcelain savings ‚box’ in the form of a clown’s head, used as decoration. It was so ugly and trashy that we immediately named it
Gruselclown
(German for creepy clown)
Gruselclown (Before)
In a state of absolute coulrophobia, I decided that it definitely needed to get a real makeover:
Gruselclown – After our intervention
The bookshelf had mostly thriller and horror novels on offer. With the name already set for the clown and seeing the books, it was a short way to decide to turn him into a skull. Now he had a real purpose to hold the books upright and add to the horror theme and the poor thing did not look so out-of-place anymore.
Gruselkabinett – Horror Bookshelve
In good company with books titled: In the Name of the Dead and Cemetery of the Living Dead or In a Coma.
Disclaimer: It has become a habit of mine, to subtly alter and improve the decoration in hotels and holiday appartments when I have the opportunity. I do this with respect to the owners and future guests. I do not intend any harm and hope that it will put a smile on people’s faces who notice.
Do you also regard domestic work as a nuissance and a waste-of-time, but realise that it unforunately is a necessary evil? I do. 😦
Sometimes I try to cheer myself up, by pretending it is all a creative and fun adventure. And this is the result of that happening the other day when I was supposed to do the washing:
Domestic Sculpture in Blue (or how to avoid doing the washing)
Wow – what a surprise! I just realised that Google has updated their satellite views, and one can clearly see my land art installations ‘Salt Circles’ right from outer space! Isn’t that cool?
Land art installation ‘Salt Circles’ by Imke Rust, as seen on Google Satellite View. (Correct Coordinates: 22° 36’ 21” S,14° 31’ 51” E)
I have taken this photo from my screen, but you can go and have a look on Google Maps/Satellite View yourself. (Coordinates: 22° 36’ 21” S,14° 31’ 51” E)
Even if one cannot see each circle on its own, one can clearly see the smallest and largest circle and some lighter/white shade in between.
And I have another special treat for you! Outer space pictures are amazing, but looking very closely at something is equally breathtaking. Here are some close up pictures, taken by my father a few months after completion of the installation:
Chestnut banded plover (near threatened species) in the centre of my salt installation
While photographing the salt circles for me, my father noticed this chestnut banded plover (thank you to Jean-Paul Roux for pointing out the correct name) in the centre of the circles, and the bird did not want to leave, dispite all the action. So on closer inspeciton my father found the reason why it was spending time in the centre of the salt circles:
Strandloopertjie nest with eggs
Yes, she has choosen the salt ridges of the circles as perfect shelter for laying her eggs. 🙂 🙂 🙂
The artwork was supposed to be a symbolic blessing and protection of the surrounding land. The concentric circles were selected as a shape to symbolise the outward ripple-effect which I hope this blessing and protection would have. To me the nest of the bird seems to confirm in a small but beautiful way, that my intentions are recognised and appreciated by nature.
Another close-up view
For more information and pictures of this artwork, click here.
How did you make this? Where do you get all your ideas? Why are you working with salt? And what is a Tokoloshe Trap?
Did you ever wonder about these things when you see my art? Well, this time you are lucky and soon you will get some answers.
Documenting SubRosa IRust (c)
We have made a documentary film about my latest land art project ‘…and I sensed and infinite scream passing through the Namib’. It gives you a great behind-the-scene glimpse into the project and an insight how I work and think.
You can join me in the exciting journey from the making of the artworks, the thoughts behind them, the challenges along the way and finally the exhibition. It is a personal portrait as much as a film about the art and its role in society.
Until we can finally publicly release the film, you can already view the trailer and check out the film’s webpage. It will give you a taste of what to expect in the full documentary once it is released. Do not forget to sign up for the blog to find out when and where it will be screened. (I will also keep you updated here.)
A great thank you, to filmmaker and my partner Steffen Holzkamp for the excellent work and the super-cool film. I am really looking forward to sharing the full film with everybody soon.
Cutting out a landscape photo from a calendar and framing it in a cheap frame seems to be a general habit all over the world. Do people really think that is cool? Ok, it is cheap and at least usually calendar photos usually show an average pretty landscape. But still, as my art lecturer would say: “Why, Larry? Why?”
Our bungalow on the island Poel in the Baltic ocean was small, but had a few typical holiday bungalow decoration gems on offer. This faded landscape of the area was one of it and in urgent need of improvement.
Found calendar photo or the BEFORE pic
I decided to pimp the calendar image with some ‘real’ painting and a view which looks slightly more exciting and challenging. On the previous day I photographed an old man going for a swim in the shallow water and decided to add him to the idyllic island landscape.
While painting, I had all kinds of ideas for the title, envisioning the man to be a mythical, cow eating giant responsible for the mysterious disappearance of the cows. Or a ghost who only appears at certain times in the water and stares at the cows before submerging in the sea again. Or just the friendly village eldest who has been going for a swim every day without fail for the past 28 years….
But I guess I leave the stories for the viewers who will hopefully notice something strange in this picture and start wondering.
Did you like this? You can view more similar actions on my webpage under Interventions. I will be posting future deco busting actions on my blog, so be sure to sign up to receive notifications of updates via email. 🙂
In a previous blog post (A Confession) I have confessed to my urge to improve boring or ugly wall decorations in hotels or holiday apartments. Today I am sharing another similar intervention with you, before I am leaving for a short holiday at the Baltic Sea. And who knows, maybe our bungalow there is also in need of some artistic intervention? If so, you will find out about it on my blog – so, if you have not already done it, subscribe to my blog to receive notifications when I post something new.
Intervention Against Tasteless Wall Decorations in Hotels and Holiday Apartments.(Part 2) Intervention gegen geschmacklose Wanddekoration in Hotelzimmern und Ferienwohnungen.(Teil 2)
Background: Since 2010 I have secretly been slightly altering tasteless or boring hotel or holiday apartment art whenever I had the chance to.
Title: Appearance of a Woman
Date: July 2012, Location: a holiday apartment somewhere in Vítkovice, Czech Republic.
Medium: Acrylic and pen on found decorative print on wood
The ‘Before’ picture of a commercial flower print as found in the holiday apartment
The holiday apartment had two exactly the same decorative commercial art prints in the bedrooms. How thoughtless and boring is that? With apologies to the original artist, I thought at least one should be more exciting than just flowers and squares. So this is how it looks now:
Altered artwork
Busy with letting the woman appear on the flower print.
View of the room with the altered artwork
Explanation and apology text which I have added to the back of the work – just in case somebody thinks of looking there.
Text added by me on the back of the artwork:
Congratulations!
You have noticed that this decoration is not your average horror experience of cheap so-called art prints, but a more stimulating and interesting mutation thereof. Such bad and soulless pictures cause an allergic reaction with me, which manifests in colours, lines and picturesque alterations.
I hope you can understand and forgive me and that you can find joy and a fresh curiosity and appreciation for true creativity and real thought-provoking , interesting and exciting original art.
Imke Rust 