Reiner Ruthenbeck (b. 1937, Germany – d. 2016)
Objekt zur teilweisen Verdeckung einer Videoszene, 1972/1974

Ludwig, Cologne, Germany / Visited 22/01/2020

“Object for the Partial Concealment of a Video Scene” – when in video – tends to trick the audience to consider what is being hidden from the view and why, effectively hiding in plan sight itself as an artwork.

I find that in many cases my works tend to function alike when the audience is trying to exercise their pre-conditioned art appreciation habits on them. I put forward a piece hoping to trigger engagement with it generative of new ideas in the viewer, but instead the work gets treated as a kind of concealer for “the message behind”, “the artist’s intention”, “coded meaning”, “artwork as text to be read”. It’s peculiar. I haven’t figured out yet if I should extend my hand and offer more guidance, or if I should be just happy that it helps me to screen the audience, filtering out the ones whom I can have an interesting conversation with.