Bündner Tagblatt, December 18, 2001 / Kunst

Staging Randomness in a Private Nowhere

Leta Peer invades the private sphere of acquaintances to stage their living spaces as art. She calls the photographic documentation of these kinds of museums of local culture "borrowed places". And now this is available in book form.

by Thomas Kaiser

Abandoned scenes of everyday life, in which hasty movements still echo. Objects, randomly placed anywhere in a combination of arbitrariness and habit, wait to be used again. A carelessly hung towel here, a wrinkled sheet there. Through the lens of her camera, Leta Peer seeks out the hidden melancholy of lost moments, the moment where abandonment begins, where ordinariness patiently awaits a return of life.

In Between Kitsch and Art

And hanging in the midst of these abandoned private spheres are her descriptions of desire, still-lifes, partly resembling naive mountain paintings, partly reminiscent of the large format works of Romanticism. In places, Peer mixes sunbeams in oil paints, so that the clouds around the mountain tops appear in a light that calls Caspar David Friedrich to mind. These small miniatures are altogether very close to kitsch. In the photographed spaces, everyday life is contrasted with romantic notions of escape.
Leta Peer lent these miniatures to acquaintances in New York under the sole condition of being allowed to photograph the small works in the places where they were hung. The escapes from everyday life ended up in bathrooms and living rooms, where they would have seemed like mere sentimental souvenirs, had Peer's photographic, documentary intentions not already marked them.
In this way, her project "borrowed places" has become an intentionally produced borderline case in between kitsch and art. Whereas the miniatures, because of the process of their crafting, at first appear to be the carriers of meaning, it is actually the photography that first relates the kitschy miniatures and the private spaces to one another, thus creating a tension. What results from this is simultaneously a documentation of living habits and a staging of randomness.

Borrowing and Trading

In the Bündner art museum's annual exhibition, there are similar miniatures by Peer hanging, separated from these private spheres. They appear to be a simple exploration of the border between art and kitsch. Yet against the background of "borrowed places", they may also be read differently: as a piece of the private sphere that still clings to them and yet is now placed on display in a museum. In this way, the public space is appropriated by these hidden worlds, is itself almost declared a private sphere. What is even more revealing, however, is the book on Leta Peer's "borrowed places", published by Christoph Merian Verlag, in which Peer's acquaintances comment on the borrowed works, their way on dealing with the miniatures, and sometimes even simply tell stories from their everyday lives. Peer thus not only lends miniatures, but also borrows places back in exchange. It is a barter. In the book, which actually documents "borrowed places", this level is changed again through the design. For the collection of melancholy everyday scenes and the unmediated experience of art is changed again through the arrangement of the work.

Leta Peer: "Borrowed places". Published by ChristophMerian-Verlag. ISBN 3-85616-153-8