BLOCK 1
2002



Installation
photo-exposed 3-D rendering, Dibond®, perspex, installation size 300 x 810 x 200 cm, 9 windows 80 x 253 cm,
3 windows 80 x 168 cm
Mark Müller Gallery, Guestroom, Zurich

"City block, the smallest area that is surrounded by streets"


BLOCK I, production still

from CHALET5 POCKET:



Sources: OPEN OTHER END (2012, Al Bursa, Cairo, photo souvenir) and BLOCK I (2014, Arosa, photo souvenir)

TEXTS
BLOCK ILight green window shutters are decorated with yellow patterns. The net curtains are studiously tied back with bows so that they fall in regular folds . This composition, which was produced at the computer, appears to represent the windows of a house in the country. However, the sleek sterility of the computer image, which creates a sense of distance, does not exactly evoke the comforting feeling of homeliness and timeless charm that the motif would have us believe. We may think of Grandmother’s little house in the country, but the ornamental patterns, shutters and curtains are so artificial that the question arises as to whether the ideal world imagined here - far away fromour global, urban environment - still exists at all. Artist duo Wälchli & Reichlin, who work under the label Chalet5, perform a delicate balancing act between wishful thinking and reality, which is to a certain extent photographic, may suggest “authenticity”, but its obvious artificiality instantly puts it to the test and unmasks it as a cliché that we carry within us.

Markus Stegmann
CHALT5 POCKET and Catalog UBS Art at Work


Chalet 5 Block Im Gästeraum präsentiert die Galerie eine Installation von Chalet5. Karin Wälchli und Guido Reichlin arbeiten zusammen unter dem Kunst-Label Chalet5 in Zürich.
Chalet5 ist interessiert an den inhaltlichen Aspekten des Ornaments und an seiner zeitgemässen Form. Chalet5 forscht und klopft unsere alltägliche visuelle Umwelt ab auf Bruchstücke und Motive, die aus dem Rahmen fallen. Filtert daraus ungewohnte Bild- und Mustersamplings mit dem Ziel, Wahrnehmungsmuster zu durchbrechen, Perspektiven zu verschieben. Die Installation Block 1 von Chalet5 wurde speziell für den Guestroom der Galerie Mark Müller konzipiert.

likeyou.com


Architektur als Muster in einem Kunstprojekt
...Durch Stilisierung und Wiederholung rücken die ornamentierten Fenster selbst an die Genze zum Ornamentalen.
Der Massstab und die Anordnung der Bilder - keines befindet sich wirklich auf Augenhöhe - verfremden die Wahrnehmung sowohl des urbanen Innenraumes, in dem sie sich befinden, als auch die des architektonischen Elementes, das sie darstellen.

archithese 2.2004, Zürich


True IdentityInside or out? When you look at the walls of the Mark Müller Gallery in Zurich, you can't be sure. Your brain registers something that looks like a façade, so you peer through one of the windows to catch a glimpse of the interior. But the window is no more than a computer rendering, and the fine net curtains are also a product of 3-D software. Flanking the broad windows are decorated shutters, another simulated effect. Taking a closer look, you realise that the shutters are too narrow to cover the entire surface of the window.
Dominating these images is a two-dimensional field of darkness that creates an "out of time, out of place" sense of disorientation. It's as if you're on a motorway moving through a monotonous landscape.
With the cool precision of high-resolution digital printing, the scene creates the same atmosphere of empty promises found in so many Alpine tourist spots and emporiums of so-called authenticity. At the same time, it depicts another existing reality: typical native souvenirs mass-produced in countries halfway around the world. A cocktail of past and present? Or a reflection of the artist's point of view?
Swiss duo Karin Wälchli and Guido Reichlin of Chalet5 call their fake windows Block I. Unusual though the approach may be, this installation remains true to the theme that dominates their art: ornaments pregnant with meaning.

FRAME Magazine Amsterdam #30 jan/feb 2003



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