mike bouchet: sir walter scott at schirn kunsthalle

mike bouchet, ‘new living’ schirn kunsthalle frankfurt on now until september 12th, 2010

‘sir walter scott, 2010’ by mike bouchet at the schirn kunsthalle frankfurt image courtesy of galerie parisa kind and mike bouchet photograph by norbert migueltz

at the 2009 venice biennale, american artist mike bouchet created ‘watershed’, a floating sculpture of a two-storey suburban american family home set against the contrasting background of venetian architecture. it was only by chance that the house experienced a leak in one of the flotation pontoons and sank to the bottom of the canal, creating a highly memorable performance during the opening of the biennale.

although accidental in nature, this event shifted the sculpture into a completely different piece of art. by the end of the biennale, the artist became interested in the idea of transforming a ‘finished’ object into a new form by means of re-ordering and sculptural editing.

as the main backbone to his ‘new living’ exhibition at the schirn kunsthalle frankfurt, ‘sir walter scott’ is a kind of epilogue to ‘watershed’. armed with a chainsaw, the house was chopped and divided into the basic forms in which the materials arrived during construction–15 minimal cubic piles of stacked timber set on carpets. the new group of sculptures explore many themes and complexities such as the dimensions of a house in raw materials, the temporality of architecture, the characterization of garbage, and the significance of the piece in its original form and its aftermath.

image courtesy of galerie parisa kind and mike bouchet photograph by norbert migueltz

image courtesy of galerie parisa kind and mike bouchet photograph by norbert migueltz

image courtesy of galerie parisa kind and mike bouchet photograph by norbert migueltz

image courtesy of galerie parisa kind and mike bouchet photograph by norbert migueltz

image courtesy of galerie parisa kind and mike bouchet photograph by norbert migueltz

image courtesy of galerie parisa kind and mike bouchet photograph by norbert migueltz

image courtesy of galerie parisa kind and mike bouchet photograph by norbert migueltz

‘watershed’ installation at la biennale di venezia, 2009 image courtesy of galerie parisa kind and mike bouchet photograph by shane munro

‘watershed’ deconstruction image courtesy of galerie parisa kind and mike bouchet photograph by shane munro