Import/Export - 2001

"Import/Export", Performance and Video art by
Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK), 2001

2001 fotografierte der berliner Künstler Sebastian Bieniek vietnamesische Zigarettenverkäufer bei der Arbeit an der Schönhauser Allee im Prenzlauer Berg und vergrösserte anschließend das Foto auf die Grösse eines großformatigen Werbeplakates, dass er an genau der selbe Stelle aufstellte wo er das Foto machte.


Die Zigarettenverkäufer erblickten so sich selbst auf einem West-Zigaretten-Plakat (damals war West die am meisten von ihnen verkaufte Marke) vor dem wiederum der Künstler Bieniek die Zigaretten verkaufte.


Die Aktion dauerte mehrer Stunden an. Später schnitt und kombinierte Bieniek die Aufnahmen mit anderen "echten" West-Werbeplakat-Aufnamen und mache daraus ein Kunstvideo. Video (YouTube)


Sebastian Bieniek, Import/Export, Vietnamesen, Zigaretten, Zigarettenverkäufer, Ostberlin, Berlin

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

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.


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. (Definition by Bieniek)

Performance/Action and later video with a pseudo advertising poster and in interaction with Vietnamese cigarette sellers. Berlin, Schönhäuser Alle, 2001.



In 2001 Sebastian Bieniek observed the illegal Vietnamese cigarette sellers who sell the "West" cigarette brand in Berlin for weeks and recorded them on video and photo at work.


The artist noticed the parallel between the concept of the West cigarette advertising at the time (the fiction) and the Vietnamese cigarette sellers (the reality). The advertisement relied on an encounter between a "German" and someone who was exotic, such as B. an Indian, or a desert warrior who meets a German woman.


Based on this concept, Sebastian Bieniek photographed one of the Vietnamese cigarette sellers and created a pseudo-west poster from the photo, which he then enlarged to the size of an advertising poster.


With this poster the artist drove to the place where the photo was taken and confronted the cigarette sellers with your image on a West cigarette poster.


Against the backdrop of this poster, Sebastian Bieniek sold the West cigarettes this time and thus brought reality onto the poster, while conversely he transported fiction (the artist as a cigarette seller) into reality.

 

Press reviews:


English translation from original german:


"... And here at the moment there is the chance to see the working concept of industrial society reflected in that of the post-modern service society (to which the art business can be attributed). For example in the video" Importexport "by Sebastian Bieniek, in the" West "-Promotions and illegal cigarette selling coalesce into a hybrid situation, as evoked by the kung-fu western mix with Jackie Chan, which the young Polish artist cut into his 13-minute street video ..."


Brigitte Werneburg, DIE TAZ




Original in german:

"...Und hier gibt es im Moment die Chance, den Arbeitsbegriff der Industriegesellschaft in dem der postmodernen Dienstleistungsgesel-lschaft (der man den Kunstbetrieb zurechnen darf) widergespiegelt zu sehen. Etwa im Video "Importexport" von Sebastian Bieniek, in dem "West"-Promotion und illegales Zigarettenverkaufen sich zu einer ebenso hybriden Situation verknäulen, wie sie der Kung-Fu-Westernmix mit Jackie Chan evoziert, den der junge polnische Künstler in sein 13 Minuten Straßenvideo reingeschnitten hat..."


Brigitte Werneburg, DIE TAZ 

(anlässlich einer Ausstellung kuratiert von Maike Janssen in der Feuerwache Kreuzberg in 2002)


Documentation:
Performance/Action and later video with a pseudo advertising poster and in interaction with Vietnamese cigarette sellers. Berlin, Schönhäuser Alle, 2001.

Performance/Action and later video with a pseudo advertising poster and in interaction with Vietnamese cigarette sellers. Berlin, Schönhäuser Alle, 2001.

Performance/Action and later video with a pseudo advertising poster and in interaction with Vietnamese cigarette sellers. Berlin, Schönhäuser Alle, 2001.

Performance/Action and later video with a pseudo advertising poster and in interaction with Vietnamese cigarette sellers. Berlin, Schönhäuser Alle, 2001.

Video of Performance by Sebastian Bieniek in the Sophiensäle in Berlin, 1999 titeled
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