18.11.– 22.12.2023
Le Bureau, Düsseldorf
"We'll put the world to rights! After all, we're not humans!"
(Erich Kästner, The Conference of the Animals, 1949)
Text by Miriam Bettin ︎
"This way please," says the cocker spaniel to the schnauzer. Up the stairs, past the employee of the month (Puppy of the Day, 2018), to the second floor of the office building. A full-body portrait shows the boss in his usual confident manner (Good Boy, 2021). "Please take a seat in the waiting area." The schnauzer avoids any kind of eye contact and looks visibly tense. He sits down somewhat awkwardly on the leather couch. Two clouds (2021) eye him from opposite. He clears his throat. "Can I offer you a coffee?" asks the cocker spaniel, wagging his tail on the landing. The schnauzer shakes his head and mumbles "No thanks" into his beard.
A rough-haired dachshund and a terrier round the corner, engrossed in conversation, they disappear into the meeting room, where the large jug and the small jug have already taken their seats (Große Kanne, Kleine Kanne, 2016). The door closes.
The schnauzer looks out of the window at the concrete façade, dreaming of Arcadian climes. He thinks of the cat with the red fur from his last vacation in Greece (Irene, 2021), and of Hermann (2023), the cat with the moustache. The thought irritates and excites him in equal measure. He shakes himself. Just as he is nervously searching in his briefcase for the matches to light a cigarette, the door to the anteroom opens and a spitz sticks its snout through the crack in the door. "The boss is expecting you."
In his solo exhibition at LeBureau, Harry Hachmeister (*1979 in Leipzig, lives in Berlin) presents new and early works. Starting with self-portraits, he works between photography, drawing, painting and ceramics, which he brings together in often expansive installations quoting domestic or urban space to create open narratives, including fitness studios, building sites or, as here, the office building he has found. With a great deal of humour and play, Hachmeister's works arise from his preoccupation with bodies (human, animal, plant) and their attributions, materialized as ambivalent intermediate stages.
Miriam Bettin (translated with deepl.com)
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Exhibitions views: 1, 17 (Harry Hachmeister), 2-16 Lars Monshausen(Le Bureau)
lebureau111.de/vol-08