M40B3 (Bauhausjahr), 2019

Basel 2019
M40B3 (Bauhausjahr)

KOW

Installation
Marcel Breuer chair, windowblind, cushion
120.0 x 80.0 x 90.0 (厘米)
47.2 x 31.5 x 35.4 (吋)
In the cinema, “Day X” occurs all the time: Natural catastrophes, epidemics or the collapse of the global financial market lead to the collapse of supply and protection systems and people having to defend their lives. But what sounds like a dystopian blockbuster is real fear: the so-called prepper scene builds up food stocks and collects potential barter goods that could ensure survival in an emergency. Even more radical was the extreme right-wing network of Bundeswehr soldiers, police officers and employees of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz), which was uncovered at the end of 2018, around a Sergeant Major known in chat forums under the name Hannibal. The latter was preparing for a takeover of power after “Day X” with the purchase of weapons and combat training over a period of years. The artist Henrike Naumann (*1984) sets up a prepper shop at Friedensplatz Dortmund with used retail equipment and home accessories. Instead of weapons and barter goods, household appliances, especially design classics from the 1980s and 90s, are offered here. The interest in the relationship between the aesthetics of private living spaces or business facilities and the formation of political opinion, including radicalisation, runs like a red thread through Naumann’s work. In the spatial installation Tag X too, she brings both into a direct context: In postmodern shop fittings, design lemon presses can be found as weapons for self-defence. Symbols of bourgeois prosperity and economic security become combat equipment.