GESAMTKUNSTWERK (2016)
Gesamtkunstwerk – Bring in the Kitchen Sink
Galerie Pleiku, Berlin
11 – 27 May 2016
Coordinated by: Henna Aho & Ville Laaksonen
Collaborating artists: Dylan Ray Arnold, Oceania Bruel, Mareike Hube, Saana Inari, Jussi Jääskeläinen, Manfred Kirchner, and others
Project description:
Gesamtkunstwerk – Bring in the Kitchen Sink was a three-week collective experiment in open creation and social interaction. The project began with an empty gallery — a single refrigerator, scattered tools, and a camera set to record a 21-day time-lapse — and evolved into a continuously transforming environment shaped by collaboration, chance, and dialogue.
The exhibition functioned as an open platform, where anyone could enter, contribute, or intervene. Participants were invited to perform, install, draw, paint, photograph, or write — but never to act alone. Each individual gesture became part of a shared process, dissolving boundaries between artist, audience, and curator.
The project’s title referenced Richard Wagner’s concept of the “Gesamtkunstwerk”, the total work of art. Here, however, the idea was reinterpreted playfully and critically — as a post-Wagnerian experiment in collective authorship, where art emerges not from unity but from multiplicity, disorder, and conversation.
Gesamtkunstwerk – Bring in the Kitchen Sink was not an exhibition in the traditional sense, but rather a living social sculpture, an unfolding artwork completed by everyone who participated.
Empty space. Nothing but an empty fridge standing in the middle of the gallery. Some basic tools and artist materials are laying around. Camera is installed on the corner and set for a time-lapse of 21 days. Bring in the kitchen sink? Let’s make a Gesamtkunstwerk! Let’s listen to Richard Wagner!
Concept for the exhibition was an open platform for everyone to collaborate with. Anyone could just drop in when open or make an appointment – to perform, install, draw or paint, make a photoshoot, write a blog, whatever – but not to do it solo. If someone brought their own artwork we challenged it for a debate and also installed the work together.
This collaboration confronts the limitless possibilities of collaboration. So this is not exactly an exhibition – its more like and social experiment conducted by two, but completed by the many. All the artworks were created on site and in collaboration with invited and un-invited artists from the materials found laying around the space and surrounding area.