Vogelhaus

Bird houses that are set up in gardens often refer to the traditional house shape with a gable roof. This protects both the birds and the food supply from the weather. Luzia Hürzeler shifts scales and relations in her video “Birdhouse”. “I was interested in how humans project the form of their dwelling onto the birds and how this attribution can be shifted or reversed”, the artist wrote to the author on 23.03.2020. The small animals appear to be giants that, just like master builders, now start changing the house by pecking at it. The whole, consisting of bread with grains, fits into the silhouette of a city. It is the choice of perspective that makes these references possible. The viewers become part of the group of birds. It seems as if we were looking upon the destruction work of our fellow creatures with the beady eyes of sparrows.

The artist arranged this scenery at the popular seaside resort of Bain des Pâquis, situated on a pier on the shore of Lake Geneva. Overlooking the water, one has a beautiful view on the row of houses opposite.

‘Food’ is linked to another basic need, that of ‘housing’. In the video, pigeons and sparrows eat away the grains from the bread block until only crumbs are left. They virtually destroy a house that could offer shelter to humans and animals. At the same time, with the destruction of the block-like bread house, a historical building comes to light, like a glimpse into another time.

Luzia Hürzeler often uses animals as protagonists in her artworks. Through the animals, which become alter egos of humans, a field of action or thought opens up. Are the birds magical builders who transform a crude architectural style from the present back into a decorative historicism? Once the sustenance is gone, the house in the modern architectural style has also disappeared, could be one conclusion. Or the question might be posed, as to whether the old architectural style is suited to the present?

For the presentation on the eBoard of the Congress Center Basel, the artist and the curator have chosen a short adaptation of the original forty-minute version. The latter presents in real time the duration of the birdfeed model house being pecked to pieces.

Andrea Domesle, translated by Christopher Haley Simpson