andreas slominski

Sometimes, bits and pieces of conversations or events come together after the moments are gone, only making (more) sense with hindsight.

I was writing an essay a few weeks ago about Foucault and Habermas when I decided to use an art work by Slominski to illustrate one of my points. Basically, the work is called Streetlight with Tyre (1996) and consisted of a bicycle-tyre laid around the base of a street lamp. Instead of simply tossing the tyre over the lamp however, the artist has hired a team of workmen to uproot the light and disconnect all the cables, before ceremonially placed the tyre around the lamppost from below. After all that effort, what one can see is only a deflated tyre around the lamp. The tyre was stolen after two days.

Some has credited the work for revolving around the principle of "maximum effort for minimum effect," turning our usual reasoning of efficiency on its head. Instrumental reasoning has been resisted, in short.

When my friend told me about this work in the middle of the night about thirteen months ago, I frowned, not comprehending one bit.

Now, the work seems more interesting, even making its way into my essay. And this blog post is for memory's sake.