Heizkörper (Radiator)

Schneider’s Heizkörper (Radiator) is a fragment from a completed rendition of the artist’s largest and longest-lasting work, Haus ur (1985 --). After the death of his father, the sixteen-year-old artist began what would become an unending process of reconstructing his childhood home in Rheydt. Schneider recreated Haus ur as Totes Haus ur (Dead House ur, with ur referencing the home’s address on the Unterheydener Straβe) for the first time in 2001, rebuilding rooms and adding new ones to the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. While Haus ur, with its ever-changing walls, lighting and furniture, seeks to capture lingering emotional memories before they dissipate, Totes Haus ur serves as a conclusive performance of a single moment within the life of the original work. Every minute detail Schneider incorporates into Haus ur is intended to imperceptibly sway the visitor’s immersive experience: ‘A whole world opens up with all sorts of things that are not recognizable but which are there and which influence the way we feel, think, and act, how we live our daily lives. … Cladding in various materials can alter the effect of a room without you quite being able to say why’ (Gregor Schneider and Ulrich Loock, '….I never Throw Anything Away, I just Go On…' in Gregor Schneider: Totes Haus ur/Dead House ur/Martwy Dom ur 1985—1997, Frankfurt/Warsaw/Mönchengladbach/Paris 1998, p. 25). Schneider’s Heizkörper is just such a detail: a remnant of Schneider’s psychosomatic world, the scope of whose influence on its visitors cannot be known.