About the exhibition

Hinrich Sachs was born in 1962 in Osnabruck and lives in Hamburg. In his work he either arranges socially or intellectually challenging situations that include the general public or makes installations which depend on communication and exchange.

For Moderna Museet Projekt he has made a live portrait of the Italian designer, Anna Gili, in the form of an installation where she is presented from various perspectives: an interview Sachs has made with her on a CD, a selection of objects she has designed and several privately-owned things. The installation, which is presented at the Citysalongen, a business travellers’ lounge at CentralstationenStockholm from 28 May to 17 June, reflects in part Anna Gili’s taste, for example, it includes her choice of colour. The designer herself will be present at the preview on Thursday, 27th May, from 7-9 pm.

Anna Gili is one of the few women who has established a high reputation in the world of international design. During the 1990s she became known for her glass vases, lamps, the ‘Tonda’ armchair specially designed for an Italian TV programme, and for her personal approach to design. She feels that many of the objects we surround ourselves with lack identity because we often only see their functional side. She is interested in the symbolic meaning of objects, as opposed to merely surface or formal design: in her work, both colour and pattern function in a symbolic way. Because of this her style is sometimes described as flamboyant.

Hinrich Sachs’ portrait of Anna Gili, which is entitled ‘Anna Gili, Designer, visits Hinrich Sachs’, may be seen in the light of the reformulation of the portrait as a genre which has been going on in recent years. Such work ranges from Thomas Ruff’s large photographs of different people in half-length, Annica Karlsson-Rixon’s photographic portraits of friends placed in scenes from Nordic turn-of-the-century paintings to Tobias Rehberger’s portrait of his gallery’s artists in the form of individually-designed vases and specially composed bouquets and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s arranged spaces. These two latter artists, like Hinrich Sachs, avoid the depiction of their subjects’ appearance or face and instead focus on his or her private and public narratives. Earlier this year Hinrich Sachs made a similar ‘live portrait’ of the virologist, Mikaela Muller-Trutwin at the Kunstverein Bonn.

To spread information about his projects, Hinrich Sachs prefers to adopt the techniques of the world of entertainment rather than established art channels – he puts up posters and distributes flyers. The placement of this portrait in Centralstationen in Stockholm reflects both the artist’s and the designer’s mobile existence and their communicative identities. The Central Station is a place where one stops to rest, look around, talk, listen and perhaps take a moment to gather oneself together between destinations.

Just now Hinrich Sachs is participating in the group shows ‘Failure’ at W139 in Amsterdam and ‘Talk. Show: Art and Communication in the 90s’ at the Vom-der-Heydt in Wuppertal.

Hinrich Sachs will be in Stockholm from 25-30 May, and Anna Gili from 27-30 May.

Curator: Maria Lind