Barbara Breitenfellner's Dream-Inspired Installation at Le Confort moderne

Austrian-born Berlin-based artist Barbara Breitenfellner transforms dream narratives into sculptural installations at Le Confort moderne in Poitiers, from September 29 to December 18, 2011. Her work occupies the indeterminate zone between nocturnal visions and artistic creation, a practice she has pursued since the early 2000s: each morning upon waking, she records dreams specifically about contemporary art, then stages them as three-dimensional environments. The exhibition 'Trauma' (German for 'dream') features two installations that play with the gallery's industrial architecture and theatricality. One piece recreates a dream of exhibiting in a large museum where mediocre paintings hang high on walls, the floor covered in psychedelic carpet, and a luxury car sits like a bronze sculpture. The second installation invokes Joseph Beuys's mythology as dreamt by the artist: a mannequin in a gorilla costume wears Beuys's iconic fisherman's vest atop a lifting platform, while the recurring sound of a turbine echoes Beuys's 1974 performance 'I Like America and America Likes Me' with a coyote. Breitenfellner's assemblage of disparate objects—lightbulb walls, recorded applause, circus podiums—tilts Beuys's shamanic art toward burlesque. The exhibition's title puns on 'Traum' (dream) and 'Trauma,' suggesting a playful 'Beuys Meets Girl' narrative. Concurrently, Bongoût publishes 'Sommeil codé, Barbara Breitenfellner,' a catalogue of her collages from 2006 to 2011.