Ideas you
believe are
absurd
ultimately
lead to success

European Kunsthalle
Models for Tomorrow
Cologne
2007

This work, which text is derived from fortune cookies, has taken various forms and media since 2000.
Here, the text is installed at the gas station across from the site where the Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle in Cologne once stood. The demolition of this Kunsthalle led to the European Kunsthalle 2005, a discursive platform without a physical location, which has developed a radical approach to institutional practice.

The European Kunsthalle aims to reflect the concepts and potentials of the Kunsthalle model, to put it into perspective and develop it. Its activities focused vigorously on decentralized projects as well on collaborative structures. As an institution without a permanent site, the European Kunsthalle is targeting overall performative presence: it exists in the very places where its projects are happening.

Within the Framework of “Models for Tomorrow: Cologne”, twenty-one artists show their designs for a new exhibition hall at both extraordinary and ordinary cultural sites in downtown Cologne. The sketches, planes, and models produced especially for this exhibition deal with two themes: the architecture for the new exhibition space and concepts for its possible use. Artists’ pragmatic approaches are shown alongside works with utopian potential, using the urban space with its range of publicly accessible sites.

A ring-shaped parcours has been set up in downtown Cologne that invites the art audience to walk along its path. The venues offer various spatial concepts with varying opening times, represent commercial or public interests, and are highly popular or exist on the city’s periphery. They show that answers to the question regarding the future profile of the European Kunsthalle might already be there in one of the city’s resources: its spaces. Moving through different stages of exhibitioning, the European Kunsthalle directs attention to its specific location and starting point.

The installation of the evocative aphorism Ideas you believe are absurd ultimately lead to success on this location triggers thoughts about the site across the street, its past and its possible future. It visualizes the notion that spaces can be created where nothing actually exists, and that these spaces are more than just temporary, imaginary buildings. The use of light creates a stage for the work, which also makes it clear that every idea, regardless of how fragile it is, can take on a solid form with help from mediation and communications tools.