"Life is Bad" ("Die Welt ist schlecht"), Installation art by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK), 2000

What is the difference between "Performance", "Action Art", "Installation Art" and Video Ar t?

When the artist or the body of the artist is in focus, so the acting is part of the artwork, it's a performance. When the artist isn't visible but it's still about people and when it's that fast changing in time that you can see the "Beginning" and then "End", than it's "Action Art" (Happaning is kind of outsourced - not directed by a single artist but by many). Installation is when you can't see it "changing" in time, so it looks always the same, or can be at least restored, and when it's about objects.

However even still some installations like "My Breath rests here" ("Hier ruht mein Atem") have some performance character (at least in the creation phase), but than again not really, because than "the painting of a painting" could be also a performance, so it's more about the focus. Or take the (big) "Please Ignore This" from 2018 and compare it to other Bieniektext textart. What's the difference? It's only the size.

A recorded and shown as a video performance, without real life viewer and the interaction with the viewer like "The 30 € truth" or "Crying for this Video" for example is a video.

What is the differance between Installation Art , "other conceptual art" and sculpture?

Installation is somehow big. If you can't carry it away it's an Installation.

If it's small enough that you can carry it away and when it's technically not unique (so you can't recognize a signature by the making, or - even - somobody else did it, like the "overpainted Sebastian Bieniek") but - may be - by the "spin" of the idea, than it's Bieniek's "other conceptual art".

And than: sculpture is when it's made by the artist himself and one needs a little "artist like" skills to do it, or at least everbody would do it kind of different, but this "different" was made by the artist himself.

Nevertheless some artwork like "Recycled Sol LeWitt" , or the "The Stolen 100 DM" are still hard to collate. What is it? At the beginning it's "Action Art", than depending on the presentation, it could be an Installation (if you take a lot and make it big), and if you just take (one) the final result could also be a sculpture, but according to the definition "without special skills and skill-signature it's other conceptual art, it's "other conceptual art.

(Bieniek's definition)

"Life is Bad", Installation art by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK), 2000

"Life is Bad" ("Die Welt ist schlecht" & "Le Monde est cruel"), Art Installation by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK), 2000. Installed in front of the prison of Celle and Rennes. Sebastian Bieniek visualised and installed on a huge poster in front of the prison exit in Rennes the fastest train connection to the prison in Celle and in front of Celle prisons's exit the vice versa train connection to the prison in Rennes.

This work is the contribution to an exhibition in which the scholarship holders of the scholarship of the Franco-German youth organization 2000 took part. The exhibition was curated by Bettina Klein and was entitled "Passagen / Aux voyageurs".

Sebastian Bieniek's contribution to this exhibition was: "Life is Bad". It consisted of two oversized posters. The posters were hung from the exits of the prisons in Celle and Rennes, which are both in the immediate vicinity of the train station, and represent the fastest train connection from one prison to the other.

Photo documentation, Prison of Celle (Germany):

"Life is Bad" ("Die Welt ist schlecht" & "Le Monde est cruel"), Art Installation by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK), 2000. Installed in front of the prison of Celle and Rennes. Sebastian Bieniek visualised and installed on a huge poster in front of the prison exit in Rennes the fastest train connection to the prison in Celle and in front of Celle prisons's exit the vice versa train connection to the prison in Rennes.

Photo documentation, Prison of Rennes (France):

"Life is Bad" ("Die Welt ist schlecht" & "Le Monde est cruel"), Art Installation by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK), 2000. Installed in front of the prison of Celle and Rennes. Sebastian Bieniek visualised and installed on a huge poster in front of the prison exit in Rennes the fastest train connection to the prison in Celle and in front of Celle prisons's exit the vice versa train connection to the prison in Rennes.

Text by Bettina Klein, the curator of the "Passagen/ Aux voyageurs" exhibition:

(English translation from original German)

One of the key scenes of many crime novels - or does the "prison film" even have its own genre? - plays at the entrance of a prison. Sometimes this place is the parenthesis of the entire narrative. In any case, it is a highly emotionally charged place, full of fate, the place where, when stepping out of the gate, all perspectives are open, the possibility of a new beginning after years of inevitable seclusion.

So much for the cinematic ideal, an idea that Sebastian Bieniek takes up with his work "Le monde est cruel / The world is bad" in the form of an ideal-typical landscape panorama from computer-processed calendar photos. At the entrances to the Prison des Femmes in Rennes and the JVA Celle, both architecturally very similar and located in the immediate vicinity of the local main train station, a city within the city, he has each placed a poster over seven meters long.

A trip is advertised, by train, as it is so obvious, even the departure times are indicated and photographs of the transfer stations, claustrophobic little worlds with the train door windows as a passport, prove the real possibility of this trip.

However, the destination of the trip is by no means the blooming landscape promised on the poster, but, seen from Celle, the women's prison in Rennes, from Rennes the JVA Celle.

Of the many possible travel impressions, only tiny excerpts are shown on the poster, not unlike the view from the prison window. And the timetable, which is determined to the minute, is more reminiscent of the regulated daily routine in prison than that it evokes great freedom.

So a cynical endless loop, a fictional escape route, marketed by the internationally used escape sign males, which offers no opportunity to leave the system, because, according to Bieniek, "The world is bad / Le monde est cruel" and an inkling of freedom can ultimately only to be found in the projection.

(see: defined conquered space, mapped world, "shrinking of the planet" (Rice, p.193)

As in some earlier works, Bieniek divides lived or even imagined time into measurable units and tries to make it visible by creating a system. For example, when he spent two days and nights in the Charité Museum in Berlin inflating balloons and recording minutes and seconds ("Hier Ruht Mein Atem, Sebastian Bieniek, 1998) or when he was in a wooden pillar with a recess for his arm, had a cut made after two hours and then haired in it for another two hours ("Hand Without A Body", Sebastian Bieniek, 1999).

This is by no means a belated form of Viennese actionism, but rather an experimental arrangement, the sober experimentation with the limits of the physical.

In his current work, Bieniek connects two places that happen to have something in common. The choice of locations could also have turned out completely different, less pathetic, because the connection to which he refers, the route network of the European railways, could be used for any pair of locations.

As in the earlier works, the pathos of the choice of location and the staging is only apparently superficial. Bieniek plays with the idea of pathos, but at the same time negates it through the strictly defined framework in which his works take place. Ultimately, it is always about the difference between conceptual and lived experience.

by Bettina Klein (2001, curator) (from the catalog of "Passagen / Aux voyageurs")

(The original german text version)

Die Welt ist schlecht/Le monde et cruel" (2001)

(Text von Bettina Klein, der Kuratorin der Ausstellung)

Eine der Schlüsselszenen vieler Krimis - oder existiert sogar ein eigenes Genre des "Gefängnisfilms"? - spielt am Eingangstor eines Gefängnisses. Manchmal bildet dieser Ort die Klammer der gesamten Erzählung. In jedem Fall ist es ein hochgradig emotional aufgeladener Ort, schicksalsträchtig, der Ort an dem, beim Heraustreten aus dem Tor, alle Perspektiven offenstehen, die Möglichkeit eines neuen Anfangs, nach Jahren zwangsläufiger Zurückgezogenheit.

Soweit das filmische Ideal, eine Idee die Sebastian Bieniek mit seiner Arbeit "Le monde est cruel / Die Welt ist schlecht" in Form eines idealtypischen Landschaftspanoramas aus computerbearbeiteten Kalenderfotos aufgreift. An den Eingängen der Prison des Femmes in Rennes und der JVA Celle, beide architektonisch sehr ähnlich und in unmittelbarer Nähe der örtlichen Hauptbahnhöfe gelegen, eine Stadt in der Stadt, hat er jeweils ein über sieben Meter langes Plakat angebracht.

ine Reise wird beworben, per Zug, da so naheliegend, selbst die Abfahrzeiten sind indiziert und Fotografien der Umsteigestationen, klaustrophobe kleine Welten mit den Zugtürfenstern als Passpartout, belegen die reale Möglichkeit dieser Reise.

Allerdings ist das Ziel der Reise keineswegs die auf dem Plakat versprochene blühende Landschaft, sondern, von Celle aus gesehen, das Frauengefängnis von Rennes, von Rennes aus die JVA Celle.

Von den vielen möglichen Reiseeindrücken werden auf dem Plakat nur winzige Ausschnitte gezeigt, dem Blick aus dem Gefängnisfenster nicht unähnlich. Und auch der auf die Minute determinierte Fahrplan erinnert eher an den reglementierten Tagesablauf im Gefängnis, als daß er die große Freiheit evozierte.

Also eine zynische Endlosschleife, ein fiktiver Fluchtweg, maktiert durch die international verwendeten Fluchtzeichen- Männchen, der keine Möglichkeit bietet, das System zu verlassen, denn, so Bieniek, "Die Welt ist schlecht / Le monde est cruel" und eine Ahnung von Freiheit kann letztlich nur in der Projektion gefunden werden.

(siehe: definierter eroberter Raum, kartographierte Welt, "shrinking of the planet" (Rice, S.193)

Wie schon in einigen früheren Arbeiten, teilt Bieniek die gelebte oder auch nur die imaginierte Zeit in messbare Einheiten, versucht sie sichtbar zu machen, indem er ein System anlegt. So zum Beispiel als er im Museum der Charité in Berlin zwei Tage und Nächte damit verbrachte, Ballons aufzublasen und jeweils Minute und Sekunde daruaf verzeichnete ("Hier Ruht Mein Atem, Sebastian Bieniek, 1998) oder als er während einer Gruppenausstellung täglich ab 14 Uhr in einer Holzsäule mit Aussparung für seinen Arm stand, nach zwei Stunden einen Schnitt vornehmen ließ und dann weitere zwei Stunden darin verhaarte ("Hand Without A Body", Sebastian Bieniek, 1999).

Hierbei handelt es sich keinesfalls um eine verspätete Form von Wiener Aktionismus, sondern es ist eine Versuchsanordnung, das nüchterne Experimentieren mit den Grenzen des Körperlichen.

Bieniek verbindet in seiner aktuellen Arbeit zwei Orte miteinander, die eine zufällige Gemeinsamkeit haben. Die Wahl der Orte könnte auch ganz anders ausgefallen sein, weniger pathetisch, denn die Verbindung auf die er sich bezieht, das Streckennetz der europäischen Eisenbahnen, könnte für jedes beliebige Ortspaar geltend gemacht werden.

Wie in den früheren Arbeiten ist das Pathos der Ortswahl, der Inszenierung nur scheinbar vordergründig. Bieniek spielt mit der Idee von Pathos, negiert es aber zugleich durch den streng abgesteckten Rahmen in dem seine Arbeiten sich abspielen. Letztlich geht es immer wieder um die Differenz zwischen konzeptueller und gelebter Erfahrung.

von Bettina Klein (2001, Kuratorin)
(aus dem Katalog von "Passagen/ Aux voyageurs")

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Press review:

Press: Sebastian Bieniek, "The Life is Bad", 2000.

Bildtitel

"Life is Bad", Installation art by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK), 2000

"Life is Bad", Installation art by
Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK), 2000