"Other Conceptual Art" by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK)
What is the difference between "Performance", "Action Art", "Installation Art" and
Video Art?
When the artist or the body of the artist is in focus, so the acting is part of the artwork, it's a performance. When the artist isn't visible but it's still about people and when it's that fast changing in time that you can see the "Beginning" and then "End", than it's "Action Art" (Happaning is kind of outsourced - not directed by a single artist but by many). Installation is when you can't see it "changing" in time, so it looks always the same, or can be at least restored, and when it's about objects.
However even still some installations like "My Breath rests here" ("Hier ruht mein Atem") have some performance character (at least in the creation phase), but than again not really, because than "the painting of a painting" could be also a performance, so it's more about the focus.
A recorded and shown as a video performance, without real life viewer and the interaction with the viewer like "The 30 € truth" or "Crying for this Video" for example is a video.
What is the differance between
Installation Art , "other conceptual art" and
sculpture?
Installation is somehow big. If you can't carry it away it's an Installation.
If it's small enough that you can carry it away and when it's technically not unique (so you can't recognize a signature by the making, or - even - somobody else did it, like the "overpainted Sebastian Bieniek") but - may be - by the "spin" of the idea, than it's Bieniek's "other conceptual art".
And finally:
sculpture is when it's made by the artist himself and one needs a little "artist like" skills to do it, or at least everbody would do it kind of different, but this "different" was made by the artist himself.
(Bieniek's definition)
This entire oeuvre is, in a very specific way, a kind of resurrection oeuvre.
Every artwork from this oeuvre, from the very first one which is "The Turning around Drawing" (a circle of again and again) to "The Phoenix Paintings", to "Recycled Sol LeWitt", to "The Stolen 100 DM", to "Overpainted Sebastian Bieniek", even "Bird Shit on Gold", is telling the story of to fall and get up again and again.
"Birdshit on Gold" ("Vogelschiss auf Gold") is a work that actually builds on the 2013 performance "My Friend Mr. Winker from the Deutsche Bank". Sometimes a performance leads to an idea, which in turn leads to a lasting work, because the work is a metaphor for something bigger and so "Birdshit on Gold" is.
"Birdshit on Gold" ("Vogleschiss auf Gold") by Sebastian Bieniek, 2018
"Mountains", other conceptual artwork by Sebastian Bieniek 2016.
Mountains made out of empty frames. Series of six conceptual artworks by Sebastian Bieniek, made in 2016.
"Mountains", other conceptual artwork by Sebastian Bieniek 2016.
During a visit in 2012, Sebastian Bieniek discovers that his mother has recently started painting. She paints flowers. The son first praises her. Praises that she paints at all and tries something new, then he takes a closer look at the painted flowers, asks about the color, the base, touches the base, turns it over and realizes that the base is nothing more than his own photos. His mother had cut the large-format one-offs of his photos, which he had stored at her place, into small pieces and painted flowers on them. At first there are discussions and accusations, but then the son decides to turn the game around again and to make his work of art, which has become his mother's work, his own work again. He calls it "Overpainted Sebastian Bieniek", 2012.
Link to the "Overpainted Sebastian Bieniek" conceptual art website...
"Oberpainted Sebastian Bieniek", conceptual artwork, 2001-2012
Sebastian Bieniek built a showcase for the "Transfer" exhibition at the Braunschweig train station. He put a 100 DM note in this showcase. The plexiglass hood on the showcase was not fastened. After a few hours the 100 DM note has disappeared and a sign that was underneath appeared. The sign read: "Die stolen 100 DM, Sebastian Bieniek 2000" which was from the beginning as the title of the artwork planned.
"The stolen 100 DM", Sebastian Bieniek, 2000.
"Recycled Sol LeWitt", conceptual art campaign by Sebastian Bieniek that led to the rescue of Sol LeWitt's "Cube Without A Corner", which was curated by Klaus Biesenbach and exhibited in KW, Berlin in 1999.
"Recycled Sol LeWitt", conceptual art campaign by Sebastian Bieniek that led to the rescue of Sol LeWitt's "Cube Without A Corner", which was curated by Klaus Biesenbach and exhibited in KW, Berlin in 1999.
"Phoenix Paintings" These three works are made from the ashes of the paintings that Sebastian Bieniek burned in 1998 (see "Burning Paintings" performance).
"Phoenix Paintings". These three works are made from the ashes of the paintings that Sebastian Bieniek burned
in 1998 (see "Burning Paintings" performance).
"The Turning around drawing" ("Die Zeichnung die sich dreht"). Sebastian Bieniek has drawn with a pen in 1999 for around one year every morning for one hour one of the drawing from „The Turning around drawing“ series. The drawings look like a „thin lines circle“ that is turning every day a little around - like the hands of a clock. So now he owns a box with around 350 such drawings that turn every day one cm. in the right direction. )
Sebstian Bieniek, 1999, "The turning around drawing"