In Freudian psychology, there’s a specific moment of trauma when a child enters their parents’ bedroom and witnesses them having sex: Urszene, or the primal scene. Last February, German artist and philosopher Elisabeth von Samsonow, who works across sculpture, video, performance and painting, dragged a double bed and bedroom furniture onto a busy Munich street to re-create the sensation of discovering something that you shouldn’t. “You are looking for something, you are in a regressive mood, you approach your parents bed and you get this emotion, you reach the state of a child — it’s a very strong feeling actually,” the Vienna-based artist who is Professor for Philosophy and Historical Anthropology of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts there, tells SLEEK about the sensation she was trying to investigate. In the performance, von Samsonow attacked the bed to “find things — relics from my mother, relics from my father,” taking one sheet out after another to unearth the secret of one’s origin underneath. Here, the bedroom becomes a site of personal excavation — but also political: the street location, Maximilianstrasse hosted Nazi marches in the 1920s and the nationalist German party Pegida recently held demonstrations here.
But this was only one half of what would become The Parents’ Bedroom Show, which is currently on view at Spazio Ridotto, presented by Zuecca Projects and the PhotoPhore, in Venice. Iconic German photographer Juergen Teller, just off the plane from London, was there to capture the extraordinary proceedings over 30 minutes on Munich’s Maximilianstrasse on that cold February night. Here, von Samsonow discusses what it was like to work with the underground image-maker on this time-based event and how this performance fits into her varied practice as a whole.
Can you tell me what The Parents’ Bedroom Show is about?
I started the project as a sculptor and I became very interested in furniture of all kinds, especially furniture that seemed to be tinted with memories or emotions. I began to collect furniture from the ‘30s on. The type of furniture that might be the most charged in this sense is, of course, bedroom furniture. I was very much interested in the piece of furniture called a ‘psyche.’ It’s a sort of night stand with a mirror often found in a bedroom. It’s the place where the lady would put on her jewellery or brush her hair — it’s very interesting that it’s called a ‘psyche.’
So for The Parents’ Bedroom Show I put bedroom furniture into a public space in Munich, on Maximilianstrasse — one of the most frequented places in the city — and this installation was used as a set in the performance. The performance was about seeking something in this bedroom furniture — it’s a very Freudian idea. It’s very evident, what it’s about: looking for one’s own origin or remembering, or doing various operations to do with, on the one hand, being programmed by parents, histories and so on, and on the other hand, it’s about timing the programme and undoing the programme.
How did the collaboration between you and Juergen Teller come about?
We did a public talk in a museum in Vienna and then we continued talking about photography. We started to like these talks very much, and we are planning a book about our talks. And then he said ‘Okay, I’m going to photograph you in your studio’, and I said ‘That’s a little bit boring. If you really want to do something that can be interesting, then please shoot a performance of mine that’s much more me.’ That’s why this performance and photographic series came up. The whole Venice show came out of this.
What was it like to work together with him?
It was extremely interesting for me. I may say that his presence is very strong, particularly during the performance. In a way, he always kept the same distance — he followed all of my actions. What I admire profoundly in him is that it was 12 degrees minus the day of the performance, and you can imagine the London airport where he was travelling from — it was pandemonium, all the planes were late. But, Juergen arrived in Munich at 5pm and the performance was starting at 6pm, so we didn’t have so much time to brief each other beforehand. So, we just plunged into the cold water and I really saw his capacity to find out what the show was about — he got it immediately. He approached the performance in a highly intuitive and highly immersive way. He said that he is ‘like an animal,’ that he will know immediately, which I admire a lot. You understand the performance very nicely in his photographs — I think the selection is so well done. For me, it’s like a mirror of somebody plunging in, performing and then doing the selection in an extremely thoughtful way. So I really appreciate this.
What would you like people to take away from The Parents’ Bedroom Show?
I think that it might be a piece many people can immediately connect with because everybody has this experience with their parents — or fantasies about their parents. It’s very direct sometimes, what people take away, or it activates some sort of memory or reflection. This is the very obvious point in the show. The other one is, it came out of a long discussion with Juergen — the question of what is a photograph for you. Roland Barthes spoke about a photograph as being frozen in the moment. This moment is already present in the moment that Jurgen pulled the trigger, so it is also about time and the loss of time, the gain of time, reconstruction of time, one’s own time. These are some motives that I would love so much if people could attach to my show.
How would you say this fits into your practice as a whole?
I think that The Parents’ Bedroom Show is like an illuminating point for me in my art practice, because it’s the first time – I work a lot with sculpture and with wood generally – that I skipped this and fetishised the furniture instead. I thought I would go more into this exploration or transformation of things that I can find, and work much more conceptually. And also maybe highlight much more explicitly the moments of cooperation between the arts, between the media, and between artists. It was a really lovely experience working with Juergen.
The Parents’ Bedroom Show runs through to 31 July at Spazio Ridotto.