“The Embrace of Spaces”, 4 April–13 May 2009, Torstrasse 111, Berlin-Mitte

“The Embrace of Spaces” was installed during the “Summer of Embrace” exhibition series, across four sites. Three were located on and within a near-derelict shed at Tor 111: the roof top, the ground floor gallery; and the un-refurbished cellar immediately below the gallery. These were complemented by texts placed at 50 public space (street) locations. The exhibition site is revealed as a place in-between half-public (the roof) and half-private (gallery and cellar with windows through which the interiors are visible).

Site 1: A near-derelict place. Here the text 'ich umarme dich' ('I embrace you') which is placed along the roof line serves as a kind of caption, or headline, for the whole site. On one level it describes and comments on the physical properties of a small building sandwiched between two larger buildings; or of an old building holding out against dereliction and refurbishment. On another level 'ich umarme dich' draws the viewer in by alluding to the ways the viewers’ gaze embraces spaces and places.

Site 2: 50 public places. 50 numbered texts describe and further elaborate the theme “The Embrace of Spaces” in an open and lyrical way. The texts are duplicated in A4 formats and placed in the streets around the exhibition site.

“The Embrace of Spaces”, 2009, “sie senkt ihn die Augen umfasst”, # 041 of 50 texts pasted on public walls in nearby streets

Site 3: The ground-floor gallery. In the ground floor A4-sized sections chiselled from the cellar wall below have been hung. These shapes correspond to the A4 papers pasted in nearby streets and to the shapes painted on the cellar wall below.

Site 4: The cellar. The A4-sized shapes are painted white in the cellar and the texts of the A4 sheets which are pasted in public spaces, are presented here as spoken texts: recited by the artist and played from a tape deck.

“Listening Pieces: The Resonance of Exhibition Spaces”, 2008, Piece no.11, Babette Bar, 7th may 2008, 7.30 am, Berlin.

In “Listening Pieces” 2008 Ines Tartler leaned against buildings and places which were part of the 5th Berlin Biennale, for a certain period of time in each place to listen to the venues. The pieces which took place outside the opening hours of each place were observed by passers by and documented by the artist in auto-timer photographs.

In “Piazza del Ferro” 2007, Tartler created one of her signature text interventions. The artist chose the phrase “io mi trovo dietro” (“I find myself behind” / “I stay behind”) for the Piazza del Ferro which sits right in the historical centre of Genoa, closely connected to the famous Via Garibaldi. Tartler’s text is written in chalk (and therefore expected to disappear in the weather) on the back wall of an uninhabited part of the Palazzo di Niccola Spinola (Doria).

This project seeks to shift people’s perceptions in subtle ways and to play on the relation between open/visible and closed/hidden space in a piazza where all the other buildings facing the square are visibly inhabited. In addition to making the text on an exterior wall, Tartler opened the four doors of the Palazzo di Niccola Spinola's balcony-room called 'Limonaia'. During the installation, to coincide with the città (in)naturale exhibition on 7th september 2007, Tartler invited all residents of the Piazza to participate or contribute to the gesture of opening spaces in their square, by asking them to open their windows. More than half the residents did so, and many specially cleaned their windows as well.

In “Lapidary inscription” 2007, the artist chiselled the text “ich bleibe stehen” (“I'm staying” / “I remain standing”) into a concrete wall that was scheduled for demolition as part of an urban development.

“Watchtower”, 2005, (storm hooks, light, air, LÜ) took place in a former watchtower of the Berlin Wall era at Schlesischer Busch, Berlin (Photo © Ines Tartler)

Over a period of six weeks, the circumferential windows of the watch below and the eight firing slits on the mezzanine floor were opened day and night. The light was kept on at night, and made the tower visible from a distance. The presence and function of the tower, the observed (outside), and the observer (inside) shifted. Because of this intervention, the spatial impression of the rooms themselves significantly changed.

“Household”, 2004, text, acrylic colour, Joachimstrasse, Berlin

On the façade of a vacant building appears the sentence, 'ich bin stets hier' (I am always here), also referring to the adjacent street light. Across the street, a neighbour looks out the window.

(Photos © Ines Tartler)

Ines Tartler (b. 1969, Germany) studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (NL) and lives and works in Berlin. Ines Tartler has exhibited extensively throughout Europe since 1998. Her site-specific projects and installations have occupied public spaces, galleries and museums in Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, Japan and now New Zealand. Tartler has received various scholarships including from Senatsverwaltung Berlin (Germany), Emma Ricklund Foundation (Sweden) and Schloß Plüschow (Germany).

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