Stephan Blumenschein
The practice of artist Stephan Blumenschein looks at the histories, ideologies and fantasies surrounding institutional spaces. He does so by thinking through the relations of spaces/rooms within buildings as well as their outside. (Re)performing social hierarchies constellations of spaces form the framework for where and how (in)visibility and participation is produced and granted to whom.
Being moved things around. Deferral at Hillside
Beautiful Distress Amsterdam 06.0703.09.2023
The origin story of panic disorder as a medical category, which unfolded during early pharmaceutical experiments at Hillside Hospital/NY (1959-62), were the starting point of this installation which is centered around a series of new sculptures. Inspired by a mysterious cabinet depicted in an image of a patient’s room, the works explore dynamics of ‘looking-into’ and ‘closed spaces’, alternating between promise and deferral. The works speak about the artist’s Kafka’esque experience with the current Hillside administration, the patriarchal production of absence in the archives, and his own movement through these spaces. Thereby continuously questions the relationship between these insides and outsides without resolving it.
Cabinets #1-4 lined up in the front third of the exhibition space; to the left a series of prints of images from the research material (each 50x70mm);
Installation view
The cabinets are made of Teak veneered wood, mostly mounted onto a painted metal base and feature some furniture fittings (brass piano hinges, magnetic door closer) but no door knobs.
Industrial Teak veneer, image of historic interior of patient’s room, acid-stained letter from the archive (facsimile)
The very functional and massive mobile walls of Beautiful Distress House stored away in the corner silently being present.
Hillside Series (each 50x70mm) is a selection of various images emerging from the research (a.o. a still from a secret recording made during a visit at Hillside, a satellite image from
1951; an image of an annual report showing the names of nurses employed by Hillside in 1959 and an image of hand resting on a chair)
Cabinet #3, 800x1100x450mm
Cabinet #2, 1200x400x2200mm each
Cabinet #4, 600x550x2100mm
Exhibition publication containing five short texts (The letter, The cabinet, The Keychain, List of Nurses, The walls) that zoom in on significant aspects of the research process and thereby describe and disentangle it; description and sources of the images of the Hillside Series; credits; funding.
A list of nurses who worked at Hillside between 1959-62. Their names voiced by myself and members of my family in an informal setting.
Voices: Berenike and Regina Grübler, Moritz, Ronja, Thomas, and Stephan Blumenschein.
Open the file in browser.
- With special thanks to:
Arlene Shanner (Historical Collections Librarian at New York Academy of Medicine)
- Artistic advice by:
Leonie Kuipers
- Graphic Design by:
Bram van den Berg
- Editing by:
Janine Armin
- Exhibition documentation by:
Baha Görkem Yalim