MAHLZEIT...12 o'clock...the work is at a rest. All the tools, materials and objects that have just been used are lying around as if frozen. Where a drill roared, a hammer tapped, tiles clattered and a throat burped a moment ago, there is now a ghostly silence. All the workers have gone on their well-deserved lunch break, leaving behind a metaphysical conglomerate of materials, tools and working conditions at their workplaces for the duration of a break, telling stories of effort, teamwork, creativity and the hands that used them.
In the exhibition MAHLZEIT at WRG Sensor Michel Aniol and Meike Kuhnert present their version of such a scenario in an expansive installation that is inspired and nourished by their own experiences as building artists.
The WRG Sensor itself becomes a space of construction and reorganization and presents itself in a transformative state for the duration of the exhibition. The materials and objects used in their various states of wear and tear and their material changes in the course of processing, such as cement, steel rods, building blocks, glass, wood, insulating materials, sand, masonry, metals, water, etc., as well as tools and machines, but also personal and everyday objects, form the basis of the installation
MAHLZEIT deals in particular with the partly visible and partly invisible processes and situations of construction sites and examines the material culture associated with them, i.e. the objects, items and materials used on site, and poses questions about their connections with society, politics, science and culture. From forgotten tools to scattered materials and temporary working conditions - every object carries stories and emotions. They create a connection between the material and the immaterial, between the physics of building and the metaphysics of life. What remains when the noise of work falls silent? What stories do the objects tell that we rarely notice in our everyday lives? And how are material residues transformed into symbols of human experience and collective memory?
For the finissage of MAHLZEIT on 12.01.25, a site-specific mobile menu responding to the works and the exhibition will be prepared by the artists and served in the installation, inviting visitors to see the exhibition anew from the perspective of a construction site lunch and to experience it in a culinary way.
