Andreas Siekmann 'Verhandlungen unter Zeitdruck' (Negotiations under time pressure), installation view, 2008 / courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss
Until June 7, 2008 Galerie Barbara Weiss presents in its new spaces on the ground floor of Zimmerstraße 88-89 the solo show 'Verhandlungen unter Zeitdruck / Negotiations Under Time Pressure' by Andreas Siekmann, who recently participated in Documenta 11 and 12 as well as in Sculpture Projects Muenster 07.
In his works, Andreas Siekmann - who attracted great attention at Documenta 12 with his roundabout of protagonists of exclusive power set up in front of the Fridericianum as well as during Sculpture Projects Muenster 07 with a large ball of shredded plastic city mascots at the Erbdrostenhof - is essentially dedicated to the analysis of the economic paradigm shift from social market economy to neoliberalism as well as to its impacts on society and urban space. Siekmann critically displays prevailing power relations and conceives utopian counter-models. His unique, narrative image worlds are based on references to art history and mass media as well as on observations drawn from the realm of realpolitik.
In 'Verhandlungen unter Zeitdruck / Negotiations Under Time Pressure', Andreas Siekmann addresses the parameters of economic restructuring in former East Germany after reunification. The central coordination agency of this privatization process was the Treuhandanstalt, seated in the building of the former Reich Air Ministry, today's Ministry of Finance on Wilhelmstraße. Its façade is projected via an outdoor mirror into the gallery spaces. From March 1990 through December 1994, the Treuhandanstalt liquidated 13,800 East-German companies - 15 a day. The transformation from nationally-owned enterprises to incorporated firms, their valorisation, was considered to be the security of an economic consolidation, a precondition for the invisible hands of private economy to bring about a new economic miracle. The history of the Treuhandanstalt is therefore part of the transformation economy that first affected Eastern Europe and then spread across the globe. Its protagonists, e.g., the investment banks and consulting firms, today form an indispensable part of political decision-making processes geared to new forms of optional capitalism. The motto of the Treuhandanstalt's work - 'privatization before reconstruction' - produced, as a symptom, unquestionable methods that due to lacking alternatives demanded increasingly rapid liquidations, something which is still continued in today's government techniques. (Barbara Buchmaier)
