Place To Be

The room installation by Hamburg artist Merlin Reichart deals with perspectives on meritocracy in times of climate change and the associated places of longing. At the end of a narrow tunnel, viewers are attracted by the depiction of a tropical beach with palm trees. A draught of air caused by fans literally sucks people in.
When you enter the square room, you are not walking on sand as implied, but on wobbly paving slabs that make you feel unsteady. A ceiling of neon lights buzzes above your head, creating an unpleasantly hot and stuffy atmosphere. A photo wallpaper stretches across the entire room and the beach motif completes the circle on the horizon, making the audience feel transported not to a dream beach but to a desert island just a few centimetres above sea level. Like a Rorschach test, alien-like monsters unfold from vertically mirrored palm trees. Last but not least, one of the loose concrete slabs acts as a switch. When it is pressed, it switches off all the light for a second, only for it to flare up again the next moment.

Reichart’s nightmarish anti-paradise attacks the proclaimed notions of success and carefree living in a time of increasing crisis. The various elements of the installation allude to exploitative working conditions within the capitalist logic of value creation and the threat of climate catastrophe. In an uncanny way, “Place To Be” makes the connections tangible and calls for a fundamental rethink of our priorities.

Philip Junk
MUCA Munich
2021