Participatory installation
pink concrete
2012

An overall concept which deals with the content of work, society and individualism, sustainability and environment. The show consists of found objects embedded in concrete, bitumen and steel. It also includes flags from Shanghai construction sites and one enormous, pink block of concrete. Another component of the exhibition - and special part of the concept - is the actual location as well: a constantly changing, vivid indoor construction site. This place will be a wine bar called „Choir“ and will cooperate in the future with Gallery Eigenheim from Weimar in showing international and Chinese art at its Shanghai location. Bayer likes especially to exhibit in unusual places to extend the idea of art, to combine society and artistic activism and to develop the idea of communication for all; for example, the relationship between the worker, visitor and the artist in this recent exhibition. The pink block of concrete, approximately 120cm x 120cm x 60 cm, is the central component of the exhibition and was designed especially for the purpose of the visitors being able to partake in its creation as well as destruction and was in this meaning a very abstract picture of the idea of a monument. Monument, the way Bayer understands the word, can be an idea or the society which is responsible for the idea. At Bayer‘s insistence, visitors took a jackhammer or hammer and chisel to extract a part out of the block. In this way the visitor participated in the exhibition and the social sculpture evolved. The excavated piece of the monument is elevated to be a work of art the artist personally then signed, numbered and packaged specifically to then be taken home by the visitors. On two levels, this creates a social sculpture: on one hand, the remaining and transforming object (parent object) remaining in the gallery is the sculpture. On the other hand, that object which each guest takes home is a part of the same, albeit larger concept of a „social sculpture“, however fragmented. This is the main part of the idea of working on the monument project and was at least an abstract way to tell the visitors that they have to take part in the creation of society, that it is the individual‘s responsibility to take part in the changing of society‘s monument was illustrated as well as was pointed out the rapid coming and going of this process. For this reason the colour pink was chosen. Firstly, it makes the object, whether the fragment or the parent object, distinctive while also keeping it both artificial and fake. On the other hand, it is also a symbol for the use of fads: their coming and going, the increase in value and value loss, the quick successive sequence of destruction and new development in favour of the marked on cost of consistency, resource wastage, tradition and history, etc., This general idea was underlined by all the other artworks as well, such as the mechanical tools which were set in concrete and then framed in steel. One of these tools, for example, was an individually-developed tool one of the construction workers had fashioned into a sort of makeshift screwdriver. A worker had welded a metal rod to tighten the screw fixed to an extended lever. The finished project captivated and caught the attention of Bayer, who affixed artistic meaning to the device. This type of object holds by their individuality and long service a certain aura which Bayer consistently attempts to highlight and solidify via art. Concrete, steel and bitumen, all used in these objects, are for Bayer the very contemporary materials which are a essential as part of the fast-growing exchange of our contemporary dreams. Another object shows a wooden plane, in the shape of a cross - also embedded in concrete and bitumen and likewise framed in steel - dealing with the belief in working towards career and money and the loss of faith in other mythologies. The historical production with mechanical devices like this obtained by Bayer are consistent in their quality. In this manner, Bayer draws attention to the wasteful industrial mass production and includes these mechanical old tools which represent for him a pure form of art.