Nicole Pruckermayr, Hotel Altes Kloster | Foto: Lena Tikhonova
Skinning as renewal – a relief, as something purging, perhaps healing. But as liberating as it may be to cast off ballast, it can also be disquieting to see and comprehend the intimate relics left behind by others.
At appointed times during the course of two days skin-impression-taking sessions shall be conducted in the hotel room. In this series of happenings latex impressions will be meticulously, sometimes painfully – depending on the tenderness or hairiness of the skin section – made of the skin of different people, with each subject determining which part of his or her body to be used. Like the skin particles we are constantly losing, these skin sections are also intended to be lost or left behind. Three times a day visitors will be left alone to examine, rearrange, or even carry off the skins.
These relics of the molting process show the similarities and differences of various skins. The skin impressions make visible certain similarities between people as people without the distinctions of skin color or gender. The impressions are reduced to a few skin features, and nevertheless they disclose much more.