ArtCologne 2009
OPEN SPACE

22. April - 26. April 2009

Federico Geller / Jürgen Stollhans
DEVELOPMENTAL NOISE – ECONOMIC GLACIATION

Federico Gellers and Jürgen Stollhans’ installation is a science-based artistic project called „Economic Glaciation“. It revolves around different approaches to the history of evolution, genetics, creationism, and economics. Initial and central point of their work is the lost tape of an interview with an ape called Ham. Looking back he talks about his life ...

„Ham speaks for us and he does it better than we two together. When we found him in Pindoí Island he told us about his life, almost always been abused as an object for political adventures in the Cold War. He learnt a lot both in scientific as in artistic institutions but instead of feeling resentful of our species, he chose to love us, not only because he realised that we are also apes, like him, but because he knows that the future of chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and many other animals is in our hands.

It is a pity that we lost the tape. However, we decided to reconstruct the interview we made with drawings and different documents for preserving his unique testimony and statements. Both science and art are battle fields where ideological consensus is built on the basis of  representations. We need to understand: how are they made and what do they mean, because we want to understand our human ape nature in order to change it and make it more happy.“ (Federico Geller / Jürgen Stollhans)

Federico Geller, biologist and artist, lives in Argentina. With the Grupo Arte Callejero he tooks part in the 50th International Art Exhibition in Venice in 2003. In 2004 he was invited to the exhibition “ExArgentina” at Museum Ludwig in which also Cologne based artist Jürgen Stollhans was involved. Stollhans, participant of documenta12, travelled to Argentina and together with Geller he began to develop the project. Entitled „Sorry Ham!” and „Developmental Noise – pay attention to Ham“ they already showed a part of their work at Kunstverein Hildesheim and M29 Gallery.