x-times people chair

Performance - Installation on building façades by Angie Hiesl

Hovering between architecture and everyday urban life, this project focuses on the elderly of our society. The performance locations are the façades of buildings on streets and squares in urban space.  White chairs made of steel are mounted on buildings at a height between four and seven meters. People between the ages of 60 and 80 years old sit on the chairs high above the passers-by. They perform rehearsed, everyday activities in a reserved manner: they read the paper, cut vegetables, listen to the radio… Activities that have to do with their daily lives. By relocating the everyday experience from private to public space, the viewer is able to actually see an experienced moment of time – an individual story inscribed in the body engages in a dialogue with the respective façade.

x-times people chair is being realized as both a guest performance and a new staging involving local performers in each city.

So far, x-times people chair has been performed in 38 cities in 17 countries in Europe as well as in North and South America.

Press

"While Christo, the Bulgarian pop artist, wraps buildings in white, Hiesl, from
Cologne, aims to intrigue onlookers by displaying people in pursuit of "ordinary
life in an extraordinary way."
("x-times people chair" Stockton /GB)
The Daily Telegraph /GB, Hugh Davies, 3. Aug. 2002

“For what do we need the Venice Biennale, the documenta, or Skulptur Projekte Münster, if we have someone in Munich spectacularly occupying the city’s public space with mesmerizing performance art?”
Münchner Abendzeitung, Peter M. Bode, 27.06.1997

Premiere: Cologne, 1995
Furher performances in: Rio de Janeiro (BRA), Amsterdam (NL), Hamburg (GER), Prague (CZE), Barcelona (ESP), Bogotá (COL), Lima (PER), Montreal (CAN), Graz (AUT), among other…
Supported by: State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne City Council, Cologne City Museum, SK Cultural Foundation (Stadtsparkasse Köln), Department of Subway and Bridge Constructions, TERTIA GmbH, Society for Project Development (PRO Cöln), Ford Cologne, pesch wohnen, Goethe Insitute Munich (among other), SESC Brazil, and local sponsors