Installation Unbuilt

Created by Kira Alker

Performed by Elke Luyten

Performed at: Raketensation Hombroich, Germany

2013

Luyten’s body was installed on top of the unfinished music building at the Insel Hombroich museum site, designed by the late Raimund Abraham. At the apex of the triangle, she lays naked with her legs spread, high on the top of the building.

This performance is in dialogue with the architecture of the building (knowing that this building was unfinished is important), durational performance art and the problem of isolation of artistic communities.

We were compelled to introduce a strong female sexuality as a subversive element to the male- dominated hierarchy of the museum as well as to the commercial setting of the open-house event. Taking inspiration from the great triangular center of the Abraham building, we were inspired by the silence = death project from the 1980’s in New York City. This great triangular space in the top of the Abraham recalled the re-appropriation and re-empowerment of the pink triangle, calling us into action.

This performance was unannounced and was performed durational during a rare open house event at the Raketenstation Hombroich. This work was performed before the official opening of the program and the announcement of the performance happened only by word-of-mouth. Therefore the artists that were living on the Raketenstation Hombroich site called upon each other to see this work.  We wanted to avoid that this work would become a commodified show or pre-fabricated event; rather we created this installation as an artistic intervention.