Gregor Schneider - Invisible Dead Room

Lecture date: 2015-10-30 Art and Architecture: rooms, buildings, peninsulas Gregor Schneider is a pioneer of built art rooms and one of the most important German artists of his generation. Since 1985 Schneider has been working on the house on Unterheydener Straße in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt. He replicated existing rooms by building rooms in their entirety within other rooms. These double rooms are not visible as rooms within rooms to the viewer. Using machinery he also moves elements of the rooms out of sight. This results in hollows and inter- spaces. Some rooms become inaccessible, because they are hidden behind walls and some have been isolated using concrete, plumbing, insulation or sound absorbing materials. Different times of day have also been simulated. In 2001, he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for his work Totes Haus u r exhibited at the German Pavilion. There has been much controversy around his ideas for a dying room. Death and dying are an important part of his work and vis