Tobias Rehberger’s Performance of two lonely objects that have a lot in common is a re-interpretation of the iconic Frankfurt Kitchen. Designed in 1926 by Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, the so-called ‘Frankfurter Küche’ was originally created for low-cost apartments built to ease Frankfurt’s housing shortage. Conceived in 2014, Rehberger’s kitchen was manufactured entirely from porcelain (bone china) in Jingdezhen, China, the cradle of porcelain production. The work is simultaneously a sculptural artwork and a functioning kitchen. Its relatively plain coloring is in accordance with the Frankfurt Kitchen’s original plans. The porcelain is glazed but remains open-pored allowing the surface to accumulate stains as the work is used. Rehberger calls these stains ‘memory traces’. Positioned together on a large platform with a glass lamp based on the IKEA bowls that Rehberger himself uses for cooking, the work’s two components function as actors on a stage, inviting the viewer to decide between observing their correspondence from the outside or alternatively, entering the stage setting, thus participating in a dialogue on our relationship to objects and the roles they play in our everyday lives.
