Saturday, September 18, 2010

Hanging Interwoven Traditions: New Mexico and Bauhaus in Erfurt, Germany

We arrived in Erfurt, Germany on Monday, August 30th. The jet lag was severe and I picked up a cold on the plane (from now on I'm flying internationally with a bag full of antibacterial wipes and I don't care if I look like a freak wiping down the seat and tray table on the airplane), so gelato was in order right away. Here I am with Conni eating my daily (sometimes twice daily!) ration. The poster on the door of the Erfurt tourism office is for our show.

We hung the show on Friday September 3rd. Michaeliskirche is a beautiful building which is now close to 1000 years old. I really enjoyed hanging my tapestries in such an amazing place.
Below, Conni, James, and I talk about the placement of tapestries. The woman in the salmon sweater is Frau Hecker who accepted and arranged the show for us.
Germany TV did a 90 second spot on the Saturday evening news about our show. They were at the church filming us for several hours and the resulting clip looked great! (Especially because I don't speak German and don't really know what they said.)
Conni had a banner made for the outside of the church. It was fun to walk around the corner and see it hanging there. We got a lot of publicity in Germany thanks to Conni's hard work.James hanging one of his Wheelmaker pieces while being filmed for the TV spot.

There was a wedding in the church Friday afternoon and we had to leave for a couple hours during the hanging of the show. This is the wedding party leaving (we were waiting across the street to get back in there and finish hanging the pieces). This church is so busy with events, we had difficulty finding time to prepare for and hang the show. Finally Frau Hecker loaned us her keys so we could go in on Sunday morning when they weren't open and finish the final details.
Tapestry is something that begs to be touched. As much as we'd like people to be able to do that, all the gelato and bratwurst walking around on people's hands isn't the best for the artwork. So these little signs went on the floor in front of the pieces.

James Koehler's Harmonic Oscillation series.

It was a relief to get the show hung and we celebrated with more good food. And by the way, what is the etiquette regarding hanging your work next to a tombstone? (Emergence II)

2 comments:

  1. I don't know perhaps it an editorial comment, but really hope the question is rhetorical, What a great place to hang a tapestry!
    gave me a good laugh-love the concept. Will it still be up on the day of the dead?
    cheers,
    kathe

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do beleive that the show will come down before the day of the dead... but don't know that they have tombstone parties in Germany anyway. :)

    ReplyDelete

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