Born 1977 in Müllheim/Baden, Germany, residing in Zurich
Stefan Burger belongs to the generation of neo-conceptual artists who were active in the 1990s and who focus primarily on the production and presentation of artwork, the same as the generation of already classical conceptualists from the 1960s and 1970s. However, one significant difference between the younger and older generation is humour. Classical conceptual art was, with only few exceptions (e.g. Jiří Kovanda), a serious affair.
The works of Stefan Burger, though, are characterized by humour. At the very beginning of his creation, there is a reference to the Polish artist André Cadere, who died in Paris in 1979. Cadere constructed bars from painted homemade wooden parts that he then displayed at the exhibitions of prominent artists or in public spaces without being invited to do so. He intended them to be subversive acts that attack works of art as marketable goods. And this is also why Cadere refused any documentation of his actions that could make money. In 2008, Burger produced a bar similar to Cadere’s and placed it in the same spot as Cadere did some time ago. However, as opposed to his predecessor, he had colour photos made that he then displayed with the title “Genova – Boccadasse / lunedi 12 Maggio 1975”. By repeating Cadere’s canes in Boccadasse, also with a romantic backdrop of a dramatic sunset, I wanted to draw attention to the era (somewhat regretfully) in which similar radical concepts still had some meaning or rather logic,” Burger commented on this event.
In 2008, Burger poured cement into plastic shopping bags and hung the “sculptures” on wooden stands in his workshop. He had already presented the large-format photographs of this concept during the exhibition “Runaway Sculptor”, and in such a way, yielded somehow to the humorous feeling of another conceptual artist, Bas Jan Ader, who disappeared in 1975 without a trace.
Burger’s action which took place in 2009 in one Zurich gallery was also humorous: a chair fitted with a cushion and a zipper which things can be stored in. The gallery workers had to sit on the chair until it was sold. The title of this event was “Breeding device for small groups in the art system”. However, the term “breeding” can also mean “to sit on eggs”. Though who will sit on the eggs until the chair is sold? Nobody really knows.
Text by Noemi Smolik
