Adrian Piper. The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1–3, 2013–17 (exhibition view); installation and performance (3 gray walls reaching from floor to the ceiling, 3 golden circular desks, golden embossed letters, 3 standing desks, 3 lean stools, computer system, 3 receptionists); dimensions variable. Courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. Photo: David von Becker.

From a distance, visitors can see that the installation consists of three circular, golden reception desks in front of three ceiling-high gray-colored walls staggered along the hall. Behind each desk is an attendant dressed head to toe in black. Upon each desk rests a computer monitor that faces the visitor. After one approaches the desks, it becomes apparent that the walls are adorned with golden, uppercase embossed letters that form declarative statements, the eponymous Rules of the Game:

• I will always be too expensive to buy.
• I will always mean what I say.
• I will always do what I say I am going to do.

Adrian Piper. The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1–3, 2013–17 (exhibition view); installation and performance (3 gray walls reaching from floor to the ceiling, 3 golden circular desks, golden embossed letters, 3 standing desks, 3 lean stools, computer system, 3 receptionists); dimensions variable. Courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. Photo: Thomas Bruns.

A music stand to the side of each desk holds a sheet of “Performance Instructions” that purports to offer more information. Written in a dry, official tone, the list of eleven instructions begins: “1. Each Signatory signs and dates the digital Personal Declaration on the Receptionist’s desk screen.” After the viewer signs the digital contract, acknowledging her lifelong commitment to the declaration on the wall, the “Receptionist prints out for the Signatory a hard copy of the signed Personal Declaration plus the Performance Instructions of the Rules of the Game respectively.” These Personal Declarations are written in the style of binding legal contracts. For example, the Personal Declaration in The Rules of the Game #3 reads: “I, the undersigned, hereby certify that I will always (absent uncontrollable Acts of God) do what I say I am going to do.”

The Performance Instructions go on to explain that the signatory inputs his or her name and email address in the computer on the receptionist’s desk and that this information will be kept in a confidential registry held by the Berlin State Museums and sealed from the public for 100 years. After the exhibition, each signatory will receive a full list of the names, but not email addresses, of the other signatories. Should one signatory wish to contact another, she would request the contact information from the Berlin State Museums, which would only supply the information after receiving explicit written permission by the proposed respondent.

Adrian Piper. The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1–3, 2013–17 (exhibition view); installation and performance (3 gray walls reaching from floor to the ceiling, 3 golden circular desks, golden embossed letters, 3 standing desks, 3 lean stools, computer system, 3 receptionists); dimensions variable. Courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. Photo: Shahrzade Ehya.

On a recent Saturday at the museum, I watched some people walk up to the screens, swiftly sign the digital contract, receive their printed copy, and leave. A few visitors appeared totally confused throughout their time in the exhibit. Others lingered to speak with the receptionists, discussing further details before deciding whether to sign the Personal Declaration.

Although people can choose to sign one, two, three, or none of the contracts, one receptionist I spoke with said a number of visitors had been infuriated by the show, feeling coerced into signing the documents. Some parents have dragged unwilling children to sign the declaration, committing signatories to “…always do what I say I am going to do.” At the other end of the spectrum of responses to the work, many visitors expressed feelings of self-empowerment upon signing and seemed eager to embody their ethical vows. At least one person wept as she signed, explaining that she was so moved by her commitment. Clearly, the exhibition’s attendees demonstrated a broad range of motives as well as understanding and intention.

Adrian Piper. The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1–3, 2013–17 (exhibition view); installation and performance (3 grey walls reaching from floor to the ceiling, 3 golden circular desks, golden embossed letters, 3 standing desks, 3 lean stools, computer system, 3 receptionists); dimensions variable. Courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. Photo: Shahrzade Ehya.

In a recent interview, Piper described The Probable Trust Registry as offering a solution to the problem of individual self-interest by giving “everyone the opportunity to develop trust in themselves and at the same time show themselves to be trustworthy in a community of other trustworthy people. The process begins with the individual, spreads among other individuals who build a society, and even further among other societies that together form an international association.”[1] In this view, The Probable Trust Registry represents a utopian gesture that works toward the cultivation of a society built on relations of mutual trust. As such, Piper explains the title as a repository of names of individuals who are likely to be trustworthy: a community of ethical people on whom one can probably rely.[2] Yet this view seems insufficient, neglecting too many of the show’s physical aspects, including the legalese of the Performance Instructions and contracts, and the mystifying corporate presentation of the installation, set within a vast space that dwarfs the viewer.

One might argue that the show’s title could equally be interpreted to refer to a database of private information that will likely, but not necessarily, be kept safe. In this view, The Probable Trust Registry reflects on the role of institutions in people’s lives, drawing attention to all of the institutions—social, corporate, political—that demand our participation and to which we willingly or unthinkingly submit. The title of Jean Renoir’s 1939 film, The Rules of the Game, refers to the inescapable codes of conduct to which the characters must adhere in order to participate in the social sphere. Similarly, in a 2016 “Interim Report” on The Probable Trust Registry, Piper asserts that the work consumes anyone who encounters it, “forc[ing]” all viewers into a relation with it, no matter whether they choose to participate or not.[3] The choice of whether or not to sign The Probable Trust Registry is a pretense; we all internalize its terms and thereby participate in the rules of Piper’s game.

The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1–3 will be on view through September 3, 2017.

[1] Agata Waleczek, “Interview with Adrian Piper,” (author’s translation from the German), http://www.adrianpiperinberlin.de/index.php?id=2586&L=0.

[2] Adrian Piper, The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1–3 (Berlin: Hamburger Bahnhof—Museum für Gegenwart, 2017), exhibition brochure.

[3] “The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1–3. The Destiny and Interpretations of the Work are Part of the Work. Interim Report of 31 May 2016,” http://adrianpiper.com/art/docs/Piper2016TPTR_InterimReport-1.pdf.

Tomás Saraceno, Cloud Cities, installation view, image courtesy Berlin Art Link

This winter the Hamburger Bahnhof’s exhibitions are (mostly) devoted to artists influenced by utopian architecture, a decision made to coincide with Tomás Saraceno’s Cloud Cities, an investigation into sustainable living that borrows heavily from the language of visionary architects and futurists like Buckminster Fuller.

Saraceno’s “biospheres” are fun, enormous and inviting, with long lines of art-goers waiting for a moment of awkward repose over the Bahnhof’s hangar.  They allude to the plasticity of our “futures” (Saraceno prefers the plural) but they also seem kind of garish, like giant floaties at an eighties-themed pool party in West Hollywood.

When compared to Saraceno’s epic balloon opera, the drawings and models of early German modernist architects like Bruno Taut and Hanzel Weblik are pleasingly modest.  These are displayed downstairs, in small dark alcoves as part of the sprawling Architektonika exhibition.

Architektonika offers up a few real gems, among them Dieter Roth’s scrappy and feral Gartenskulptur, a garden-environment-installation that was added to, catalogued and maintained for thirty years by the artist and his son. Then there are photographs and remnants of Gordon Matta Clark’s 1977 Office Baroque in which the artist sliced open a building in Antwerp and created a teardrop shaped hole in the façade (which was slated for destruction).  The result emits a bodily pathos unusual for the inanimate.

Paul Laffoley, The Orgone Motor, 1981, courtesy of Kent Fine Art, New York

Upstairs Paul Laffoley offers his take on utopia as part of the Hamburger Bahnhof’s new Secret Universe series.  I’m really excited about this exhibition series, which will last for three years and focus on visionary artists whose multi-disciplinary practices may have been overlooked by the larger art community.  Finally, we can see what the weird uncles of the art world are up to.

Laffoley is a former architect who merges Eastern religious dogma, Futurism (among many other “isms”) and Carl Jung into intensely weird diagrammatic paintings.  His aims are lofty, and he seeks to illustrate complex imaginary systems like time travel, the fifth dimension and “Absolute Life.”

Laffoley, an artist devoted to the possibilities of other worlds spent many years making these paintings in a one-bedroom apartment he dubbed “The Boston Visionary Cell.”   Mandala-like, they aspire to a kind of “utopic space” with their own visual hierarchy.

In a lecture given in 2001, Laffoley stated about his mission to explore utopic space:

I have developed this task by means of symbols, perhaps the only way an individual can approach such a project. Real symbols move the mind up to and through metaphor and finally beyond to a semiotic state that has never been successfully named.

Laffoley goes on to claim that the concept of utopic space should serve “as a neutral sounding board for all attempts at plumbing or prophesying the future.” His paintings are filled with repetitive symbols including eyes, circles, stars, outstretched hands multicolored rays.  In another context, this could be a Bikram Yoga invite hidden underneath a windshield.  But with Laffoley, these symbols read as sincere parts of a dense personal lexicon.

Laffoley offers the occasional autobiographical nod, charting his lucid dreams in black and white panels, in one recounting sticking his finger into someone’s “soft eye.”

Paul Laffoley, The Renovatio Mundi, 1977, courtesy Kent Fine Art

He offers advice culled from Eastern ideas of non-resistance in vinyl letters, claiming that “All suffering is the separation of boredom and care.” His works are taped off, crisp and obsessive, but possess a kind of sympathetic craziness, like Laffoley isn’t being intentionally obtuse, he’s just your everyday Shaman, trying to spare you psychic pain.

Presenting a less utopian vision of the future is the neighboring National Gallery Prize for Young Art, exhibition, which shows the work of the four artists who competed for Germany’s annual 50,000 euro award.

Cyprien Gaillard, Artefact, film still 2011, courtesy Sprueth Magers Gallery

This year, the prize went to French artist Cyprien Gaillard, a headline-grabber who moves between mediums like beer and neon.  At the Hamburger Bahnhof Gaillard shows the more nuanced “Artefacts,” a slow moving cinematic collage of contemporary Iraq, which weaves together tropes of Babylonian antiquity and American militarism.  Gaillard lingers both on the famed Ishtar Gate as well as soldiers shooting green lasers into a receding desert.  The film was shot originally on Gaillards’ Iphone, but was transferred later to 35 mm, creating an anachronistic loop, which is reinforced by the repeating phrase “Babylon,” from the David Grey song.

Klara Lidén, a beloved Berlin artist whose urban interventions, sculpture and performative acts are usually so sharp, offers up a lackluster contribution in the name of institutional critique. Liden presents a video of herself climbing into a trash can, set to the tune of “Helpless” as well as a manicured hedge at the museum’s entrance in the shape of a dumpster.

Andro Wekua’s film and adjoining installation are more ambitious, but rely too heavily on saturated colors and the tropes of surrealism.

Kitty Kraus is the only artist to eschew video, but her kinetic sculptures share a sequential and rhythmic similarity to film nonetheless.  The pieces, like minimal metal characters, are forged from found handles and made in reference to the guillotine.  They seem dangerous and unhinged (literally).  Kraus’ work questions the way we move in the world with austere and poetic precision.

Theo Solnik, Anna Pavlova Lives in Berlin, film still, 2011, courtesy of the artist

A new addition this year is the National Gallery Prize for Young Film-Art.  The winning film Anna Pavlova Lives in Berlin by Theo Solnik is an enthralling black and white character study of a party girl whose exploits in Kreuzberg seem more elegiac than depraved.  Through drugs, alcohol and sex, Anna Pavlova clouds her own reality, creating a romantic vision of herself and the world.