When you are not happy, you want to live in a yellow balloon
When the stresses of life are frustrating, a room of one's own may have become a necessity for people to heal themselves. When we are alone in a closed room on all sides, the mind seems to become a small island that flutters everywhere, and our thoughts can finally drift away endlessly. Not to mention that nothing is better than nestling in a soft bed to recuperate your tired body and mind.
Recently, in the "Please come and visit my room" Douban group, more than 400,000 netizens are tirelessly sharing their carefully arranged rooms. Each unique room in the group is an externalization of the imagination of its owner.
Hans Hemmert
In 1995, artist Hans Hemmert filled his apartment with a huge yellow balloon and captured him in a yellow landscape from the perspective of a bystander. This most everyday place presents a surreal atmosphere, "I feel as if I am in a distant place, like in outer space." ”
As early as the early 1990s, Hans Hemmert began working on balloons. His self-developed giant balloon manufacturing technology allows balloons to fill any place freely. The bright yellow color, which he repeatedly uses in his works, has now become an iconic personal style.
01 The universe I am in,
It is composed of a yellow color
Hans Hemmert was born in 1960 to a Catholic family in rural Germany. He was educated in seminary as a child, but after studying philosophy, he found that he loved art more. Therefore, he went to Berlin and London to study sculpture, and studied under the British abstract sculptor Anthony Caro.
Unlike the German art centers of Cologne and Düsseldorf at the time, post-war Berlin was experiencing a severe population loss. As far as the eye can see, the industrial city is in a depression. Empty factories are scattered everywhere, becoming a "paradise" for young artists to unleash their creativity. Perhaps because of this enlightenment background, Hans has always sought to present works as large and eye-catching as possible.
Inheriting Caro's creative style, Hans worked primarily on steel during his studies. But after a back injury, he turned to painting and found inspiration in his frequent use of objects, "bubbles", and began to borrow lighter balloons for creation. In 1995, at the invitation of the Baden-Baden State Gallery, he placed a huge yellow balloon in the museum for the first time, occupying 80% of the venue's volume. To make such a large balloon, he would have spent two to three weeks.
Someone once commented, "Wrapped in this small bright yellow latex 'cocoon', Hans intervenes in the surrounding environment and interacts with the surrounding objects, bringing a dramatic tension to this work of art." Every movement of his, or the obvious or subtle shift in gesture, is a dialogue with the outside world. If his aim is to present the multiple relationships between people and the environment from an external perspective by filling a series of photographs of balloons filling the interior of a home, a studio, and a car, then his series of works in 1998 explores the same issue in an opposing way from an internal perspective.
This time, he transformed into a long yellow oval and carried out a series of seemingly absurd "human activities" such as hugging, carrying, taking pictures, and cycling. And looking at the way he tried to communicate with the world after the defamiliarization of the human body, is it also like the you and me who usually seem very clumsy or even stiff when they integrate into the world?
02 Do you want to open one
Two meters high Party
When asked why he always uses yellow, Hans says it's a choice of multiple factors: in the Baroque churches he traveled in his childhood, yellow became a sacred portrayal; yellow also came from the sun, representing the power and mystery of the universe; yellow in the 1970s was a very fashionable and conspicuous color; yellow was also a very irritating color that made it difficult to look away... After seeing the finished products of his other colors, Hans also became more deeply aware of his obsession with yellow.
In 1998, accompanied by the singing group Linda & Funky Boys' upbeat dance song "Shame on You," Hans performed a four-and-a-half-minute dance performance in which he swayed like a long egg to the rhythm. Hans himself did not show up, but the assistant next to him had been worried about his breathing problems. Because in a balloon of this size, he can only stay for 20 minutes at most, and if it is a large balloon, he can stay all day.
Hans Hemmert und Linda and the Funky Boys shame on you, 1998
In a 2016 interview, Hans revealed a bolder idea. On a closed, transparent balloon, he specially designed a raised strip that looked like a human head with a long nose, so he named the work "Pinocchio". In the middle of the balloon, he placed a model of a car that was just compatible.
Hans Hemmert
He plans to start the car inside the balloon, where a long, raised pipe will come into play to protect the balloon from cracking. According to his estimates, the time from start to stop of the car is only five minutes. Through this work, he wants to imply that humanity's optimistic expectations of the seizure of natural resources are actually a kind of self-deception.
In 1997, Hans fully revealed the nonsensical side of his creation at an exhibition called "Personal Absurdity" in Berlin. Perhaps due to the distress caused by the height difference that he had felt during the chat, he thoughtfully provided visitors with 50 pairs of portable high heels of 5-43cm. He asked everyone to be two meters tall after putting on high heels so that the eyes were on the same level. As a result, he also transformed people's serious viewing behavior into a party that was talking hotly.
03 In a familiar landscape,
Put something new
In addition to his solo work, Hans Hemmert co-founded the artist group Inges Idee in 1992 with three artists, Axel Lieber, Thomas Schmidt and George Zey. The team intends to create site-specific public art, and they are always there to get inspiration before developing a new work. After the four brainstormed, the most creative plan was selected. So every Inges Idee work is published, and it always brings a sense of freshness, "Inges Idee is like Christmas, you never know what you're going to get in the end." ”
Inges Idee
So far, the team has completed more than sixty public works in 11 countries. One of the team's best-known works is a snowman sculpture in the 2005 World Expo Memorial Park in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Standing under a huge open-air cave entrance, the viewer can look up and see a snowman looking at him. When he looks closely at his side, he will find that the red water tank next to him is the hat dropped by the snowman, and the shallow pool on the ground indicates that the snowman is melting.
In 2006, at a school in Munich, Germany, Inges Idee turned the surface of a flat basketball court into a bumpy surface that looked like a real-life stereoscopic 3D model. Naturally, basketball can no longer be played on such a field, but this seemingly useless basketball court has become a good place to chat, lie flat and bask in the sun.
In 2002, next to a bridge in Germany's Emsdetten region, Inges Idee built a football pitch on both sides of the river. The middle line of the course is the river, and while it may seem reasonable, kicking the ball to the other side is not an easy task. During the game, the nearby bridge added a new function and became a grandstand, and an invisible bridge connecting cross-strait cultural exchanges on the stadium was also revealed.
Disco balls are often suspended in dark ballrooms, emitting colorful and dynamic dots of light to the rhythm. In 2010, Inges Idee placed a large disco ball with a large number of reflective lenses in the middle of a lake at the Växher Art Site in Sweden, which could rotate non-stop. Under the sun's illumination, the surrounding natural environment is like a transparent dance hall, and the sunlight, air, water, and plants are transformed into elves that are moving in the field.
Let's talk
What is your favorite color? Why?
Written by/Xiao Liu
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/ Kuding tea
Typography/Koko
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