The Re-Installation of "Common Room"

Common Room is an installation of a room within a room. It is both a sculpture as well as a piece of architecture functioning to exhibit the work of eight artists: Eric Brown, Sharon Butler, Paul Gagner, Jule Korneffel, Esperanza Mayobre, David McBride, Adam Parker Smith, and Jenny Vogel.

The central idea of Common Room is to explore where the space of a shared social experience is located: Do we find it in front or behind each work? Common Room describes an actual and an ideal space: the confines of the location, the colorful and stage-like room as a physical place for the artworks; and at the same time referring to a shared intellectual, illusionistic or abstract space that we jointly inhabit. Each of the artworks in the show occupies the space of this room in its own specific way. While some of the works reach out to the viewer, others create a space beyond our reach; the difference of this perceived and actual space is central to the motif of Common Room.

The room’s structure consists of a wooden platform as a floor and painted plywood wall elements. Each wall, painted with a thick border and in two distinct colors, serves as a frame for one or several artworks. Each individual artwork in turn functions as a window and offers a connection to the world outside the room.