++++ It’s a bit strange how the woman is lying there on her back with her arms stretched into the air. She is wearing red overalls and is holding a tool in her hand and, if she were not now lying on the roof of this shelter, but beneath a car, the scene would look fairly normal, that is, apart from the high-heeled shoes. This elderly gentleman with the somewhat too large felt hat on his head also looks strange. He has been poking around in his shopping bag for at least three minutes. Then he searches in his jacket, and finally the packet of Coquette tissues has been found.
In contrast to the female mechanic, the man is not a sculpture by Anton Litvin. But because the artist has provided binoculars at Frankensteiner Hof so that visitors can view his life-size dolls on the surrounding roofs more closely, you can also use the instruments for other observations. In the house opposite, a woman is doing gymnastics in her night-shirt, and another is feeding a budgerigar. The building is badly in need of a new coat of paint. Somewhere a man is standing on a roof in his dressing down and looks like a preacher, but fortunately he is art and is not ill.
Anton Litvin, who lives in Moscow, feels that "the private space has become too open and accessible for the newest communication technologies". With his sculptures he wants to show up the influence which the mass media are having on the lifestyles and behaviour of people. And he wants us to look and discover art in everyday life. The 35-year-old action artist is a co-founder of the Escape Art Group in Moscow which improvises non-spectacular actions in front of unprepared spectators. Not what happens is remarkable, but where it happens. Or would you cut your toenails in a shopping centre?
The moment of surprise works in a similar way with Litvin's figures, which have been taken from their normal contexts and given strange attributes, such as a remote control unit. What is he doing with it on the roof? Wouldn't it be funny if you could manipulate the television programs of surrounding houses from the roof? The viewer of a soap opera could be annoyed with a detective story, and instead of the evening news, suddenly the viewer would be confronted with The Simpsons.
Frankensteiner Hof, Große Rittergasse 103, until 28 August. ani