To Bring Down a House

To Bring Down a House, 2006-11
Performance installation comprising 130 inkjet prints sent to the gallery by fax over the course of 6 weeks
A collaboration with Tim Etchells

Presented as part of Protections at Kunsthaus Graz (2006); Homeworks IV at Sfeir -Semler Gallery, Beirut (2008) and Too late, too little, (and how) to fail gracefully at Fort Asperen, The Netherlands (2011)

Installation views from Sfeier-Semler Gallery, Beirut

Creating an installation that is ‘performed’  from a distance, To Bring Down a House changes daily as artists Vlatka Horvat and Tim Etchells fax new material to the gallery over a pre-arranged period. In the project over 100 works on paper – in the form of collages, drawings and texts – are sent to the fax machine over an extended period of time, and are then pinned to the walls by gallery staff, creating a growing archive of proposals for different ways to destroy or attack a house. Ranging from simple ‘enactable’ instructions drawn from research to more far-fetched, absurd and playful destructive possibilities, the artists’ proposals sent to the house all frame domestic space as a fragile one of unease and uncertainty.

Originally created for the project “Nothing Good House” – part of Protections exhibition at Kunsthaus Graz.