The world is as it is. Alone, I cannot change that. However, in all my performances I feel the environment is somehow improved, albeit for a short time. In these interventions I am usually clad in a beautician’s smock – as worn by professionals in the 1960s – referring to a branch of my life-story I decided not to pursue.
I grew up behind the desk of a beauty salon and it was always assumed that I would become a beautician myself. Indeed, one day, I found myself in Bonn, at a well-known cosmetics company, undergoing training as a beautician.
During my studies, I spent some time behind the counter of a famous department store in Berlin, in its glittering parallel world, perfectly made-up, always following the latest trends.
Today I am aware of the necessity of small cosmetic alterations in order to emphasise advantages and conceal disadvantages – the secrets of make-up artists. In extensive research I identify incongruous or overlooked details of everyday life and try to emphasise or even improve them by performance interventions. A photographic collection of these details usually forms the basis of most of my works. Often, individual objects from these collections are singled out and then transformed into a new, unusual context.
In this way I develop site-specific installations with objects, videos or photographic images of common objects, which might be presented in unexpected locations; in addition there emerge occasional frottages, screen prints or posters. Sometimes these objects are recontextualised by a performance or are documented in a video to be projected in an appropriate location.
In this section I would like to present a series of works in which I resuscitate neglected objects. These ephemera gain a new breath of life through performance, installations, video and photography.
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Download catalogue: The Urban Beautician (12 MB)
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