Exhibitions
Archive
Christine Hill
Sliding Scales
Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin
30 October – 13 December 2014
Opening: 30 October, 2014, 5–9 pm
Sliding Scale is most recent embodiment in a long-running series of shop and transaction projects authored by Christine Hill under the format of her well established production label Volksboutique.
Christine Hill's projects examine concepts of value in consumer culture and re-invest discarded appurtenances with meaning and use.
The subject of shopkeeping in various forms and the implementation of the over-the-counter transaction recur in her work, as well as a keen interest in collecting and inventorying daily life objects and phenomena.
Christine Hill has conducted her proprietorship of Volksboutique in recent years, since 1996, from The Volksboutique Small Business, a Prenzlauer Berg storefront in continuous operation from 2010 - 2014. The public display of transactional practice, of the shifting scales of interest and investment, the thematization of the work environment, of service and reception has been a key feature in the Small Business, and in Volksboutique projects throughout. The overarching discussion of collection, of the quotidian and the prosaic, and the discussion of value and economics recurs and evolves.
Upon entering the gallery, visitors encounter the Sliding Scale Glossary, which features a selection of key words that have been generated in the numerous conversations with visitors/clients to the Small Business in the form of hand printed flash cards.
Opposite the glossary is a select reading library from the Do It Yourself Bibliography, Volksboutique's vast collection of volumes on self sufficiency.
Within the gallery, Volksboutique transactional exchange practices are featured in the central installation — The Small Business Fulfillment Center.
Simultaneously a shop/archive/library/collection, the Fulfillment Center invites gallery visitors to compile a Small Business Sampler with excised elements from the Small Business's primary collection of goods. Samplers are sold by weight, and packaged and authenticated on site by Volksboutique staff. The transference of objects into the private, domestic realm of the new owner reassigns their meaning.
Highlighted within the Fulfillment Center is the Small Business Archive Reliquary, housed in the oak, apothecary counter that has been the central exchange platform within the Small Business since its inception. This Reliquary is fitted with the essential archive of work product generated within and informed by the Small Business project. The counter fulfills its final duty within the exhibition by serving as the packaging station for the gallery-generated Small Business Samplers.
The Volksboutique Small Business is at Choriner Strasse 51 in Prenzlauer Berg and can be visited by appointment only until the close of this exhibition mid-December 2014.
You can make an appointment with the proprietor by mailing smallbusiness@volksboutique.org
Please consult volksboutique.org or find Volksboutique on Facebook at facebook.com/volksboutique