Pedestal, Probs, Photographs, Texts, Video and Performance Kunsthaus L6 Freiburg 2006
It is Montana time
“(…)Shiny, fir green tiles. It smells of violet-coloured dresses and of a costume hat – one with large ribbons on it. A brook flows by the house and mountains lie stretched like tired elephants. These are the sounds, smells and colours of the Montana-season in which the old homeland evokes past times with its abounding senses and fuses them together with the present. Cat villages – there’s hollering and screaming everywhere in the woods – have you forgotten the way it really was? The fictitious ‘Montana’ character emerged from Judith Karcheter’s visit to the Black Forest, her childhood home, during the especially hot summer of 2003. Montana wanders through the woods or walks on stilts around the village. She feels very close to the traditions and the landscape of this area. At the same time she always remains an outsider. Karcheter’s memories that were evoked during that summer were condensed, and combined with fictitious elements they were presented in the room installation “Montana – Eine Vorstellung im August” (“Montana – an performance in august”) (2006). One may gain a sense of Montana through photos, objects, video-recordings and micro-archives on pedestals. Nevertheless, one cannot grasp her entirely. A hand-sewn fluffy parrot, a self-made crown out of golden paper, or little things evoking memories, such as feathers, paper-streamers and photos: they are to be understood as mere approaches towards Montana. As a consequence, they are only suggestions and stimuli to create this character, always anew. Montana is ageless and can be evoked easily anytime, due to the emotive and poetical texts. I am eating warm raspberries; it smells of grass, of fir cones and the forest. We have met each-other.
The visitor has the chance to go on a discovery trip: s/he may bend down and look through little holes in glass boxes. There, one stumbles upon an omnium gatherum of various objects, sketches and old yellowed family-pictures. And sometimes, unexpectedly, one looks at oneself in the little mirrors. The centre of the room installation consists of a rough timbered stage, where the show culminates in a performance. In a dramatic reading the artist confronts herself with memories by blowing out streamers and by decorating her costume with blood-drop shaped pieces of felt. Yet the artist intentionally remains vague, thus leaving enough imaginative space for the audience to build their own stories. She reads aloud the poetical text fragments in a concentrated and precise manner, lets them float through the quiet room.(…)”
Text, Carola Conradt, English translation: Isabella Risorgi
