Claire Waffel. Kommerz was yesterday

installation and live-performance by Claire Waffel in collaboration Pere Ferrera Bertran

30. April 2015, 18.00
Igor Metropol Studio, Budapest 1116, Sztregova utca 1., 4. floor

Claire Waffel’s installation and performance works with a public site in Budapest unravelling its past, deconstructing its current state and placing it in a current consumer context. Corvin Áruház, a renowned building on the Blaha Lujza tér originally used to be admired for technical innovations and it’s beautiful architecture in the 1920s. Next to desirable consumer products, different cultural events such as art exhibitions added to the attractiveness of the department store. 90 years later the building has completely changed its appearance. An annexed facade, now multi-usage it speaks of urban development and decay. Waffel’s performance and installation are linked to former projects, where she has worked with architecture and historical memory. Kommerz was yesterday is a performance consisting in visuals and audio, fragmenting and stripping away structures and layers. Her subtractions reveal histories, allow for openings, liminal spaces and transform the architecture into an act of communication.
The performance, realized in collaboration with sound artist Pere Ferrera Bertran was the result of Claire Waffel’s Studio Residency at Igor Metropol and was presented at the firstOFF-Biennale Budapest.

Installation and performance at Igor Metropol
Photos: Nóra Lukács, Csányi Krisztina – OFF Archivum

A project by Igor Metropol (Katja Melzer & Lukács Nóra), presented in the frame of OFF-Biennale 2015 Budapest and supported by Goethe-Institut Budapest.

My video about the first OFF-Biennale for #32, the online magazine of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is available here: