Door to the Clay Class

Door to the Clay Class, 2011
environment / installation, including house, door, furniture, clay, air humidifiers, mold
variable dimensions

A door inside a public building announcing access to a fictitious clay class. Inside, the humidity is stifling. The clay figurines have been produced by my art students at ETH Zurich, and used as ready-mades with their permission. The visitor, her visit to the site (coming from the street, opening the door, entering the rooms, …), and the promise of what is behind the door are all part of the work’s semantic construction. Door to the Clay Class has been my contribution to the open-air exhibition Môtiers 2011 – Art en plain air in the Swiss Jura mountains.

Robert Estermann, 2011

shown in:
“Môtiers 2011 – Art en plein air”, Môtiers, Switzerland

see also:
Clay Collection and Speculative Plane (Swiss version), 2011

Bibliography:
Catalogue d’exposition: Môtiers 2011 – Art en plein air, Val de Travers, Du 17. juin au 18. sept. 2011, with texts by Pierre-André Delachaux, Jacques Hainard, Didier Burkhalter
artensuite – Kulturmagazin, Dominik Imhof, “Gesehen von”, May 2011, Bern, p. 7
La Liberté, Jacques Sterchi, “Val-de-Travers: en plei air”, 16. July 2011, Fribourg, p. 27

On a street corner, Karl saw a poster with the following announcement: ‘At the racecourse in Clayton, today from 6 a.m. till midnight, personnel is being hired for the Theatre in Oklahoma! The Great Nature Theatre of Oklahoma is calling you! It’s calling today only only! If you miss this opportunity, there will never be another! Anyone thinking of his future, your place is with us! All welcome! Anyone who wants to be an artist, step forward! We are the theatre that has a place for everyone, everyone in his place! If you decide to join us, we congratulate you here and now! But hurry, be sure not to miss the midnight deadline! We shut down at midnight, never to reopen! Accursed be anyone who doesn’t believe us! Clayton here we come!’

Except from Franz Kafka: Der Verschollene (The Man Who Disappeared), c. 1913 (incomplete novel, published posthumously as Amerika, 1927, translated by Edwin Muir, 1946)