PLANT#2 16/349 / Wege

(1980, salt, strings, copper wire, fire)   

Installation and performance

626 Broadway, New York, 1981 (color)

Galerie Toni Gerber, Bern, 1980 (b/w)

Galerie Apropos, Lucerne, 1980

Berner Zeitung, Wednesday, November 19, 1980 Page 11, written by Res Ingold

Dozens of Small Fires

Alexander Hahn performs “PLANT#2 16/349”

Toni Gerber is finding new ways and possibilities to present artistic expressions in an optimal setting. He has been given access to a kind of basement veranda in a private house on the Schänzlihalde in Bern as an action space. The architectural design of the room alone is highly interesting and can certainly inspire more artists to create installations.

The young artist Alexander Hahn, who lives near Bern, presented his work “Paths” here over two days. Although his action appears light and immaterial, it involves considerable effort and material. He used:

350 m copper winding wire (0.35 mm)

1200 m linen thread soaked in a saturated salt solution, lightly impregnated with paraffin

125 kg de-icing salt, air-dried

50 m galvanized iron wire

350 paper clips

50 eye screws and wall plugs

1 box of matches (25 cm)

1 package of table salt

1 table lamp

2 photographic floodlights, 2000 watts each

Upon entering the whitewashed performance space, I have the feeling of being outside, under the open sky. Part of the floor is covered with salt, lying there as if blanketed by snow. A coarse-meshed net of copper wire is stretched beneath the ceiling. From it hang many white threads, ending in small piles; salt, snow, or something similar seems to be trickling down.

The room is permeated by a delicate, vulnerable sculpture. Two powerful photographic lamps cast their glaring, cold light onto the scene. The light goes out. Alexander Hahn enters the space. Using the beam of a flashlight, he searches for a path through the thread construction. He covers his footprints again with salt.

Then he lights a match and passes the flame onto a thread. The flame slowly climbs upward and dies out. With further matches, he gradually ignites all the threads, calmly and with concentration. Each thread becomes the path for a new, independent flame. No flame burns like another: some flare up quickly, others threaten to go out; these Hahn protects with his cupped hand so that they may grow stronger.

Often dozens of small fires move through the space; here and there all have gone out.

The performance lasts a long time. The same action is repeated many times, each time a new path. I am fascinated; a thousand ideas pass through my mind.

Res Ingold