Strictly Public

In the exhibition project “Die der Art guten Freunde” initiated from the swiss actors and artists Joey Zimmermann, Irène Hug and Maya Weyermann at Auguststrasse in Berlin Mitte, artists were invited to intervene in Joey’s private flat. The agreement for the work was to use everything one could find in the apartment: all the furniture and private objects had to be involved in the installation.

In her installation “Strictly Public”, Barbara Fässler covered the entire flat with colored film. She followed the shape of the rooms, hanging a transparent colored plastic material from the ceiling and leaving a 70 cm large corridor around the original space.

The public had two possible roles. When spectators walked around the corridor, they perceived the living room for instance colored in red, the sleeping room in yellow and the bathroom in blue. Public could also enter the spaces, moving across the colored films. In that case spectators became an active part of the installation, which embodied the scene of a “live” home.

The title of the intervention “Strictly Public” alludes to the paradox of the apartment as the most private space, which in that case becomes a public art space, where the exhibited object indeed is the private flat of the actor Joey Zimmermann.