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Geissler/Sann: the real estate
April 9 – May 23, 2010
from the real estate, 2008-2009
The photographic series the real estate (2008/2009), by Chicago-based artists Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann, depicts homes in foreclosure, evoking the absence and loss of former homeowners with unembellished portraits of empty living space. Oliver Sann and Beate Geissler moved to Chicago from Germany in 2008 just as the economic downturn hit and home foreclosures became widespread across the economic spectrum. Sann and Geissler document homes in Chicago, usually after they have been vacated, in a straightforward manner, capturing both the stark emptiness and the traces of human occupation, from structural architecture to decorating choices. The homes they photograph range from those worth a few thousand dollars to 3.5 million-dollar mansions. Sann and Geissler install the real estate as a long row of images that are divided by frames, but connected by compositional elements defined by the architecture of the spaces depicted. In this way they invite the viewer to connect distinct spaces and different types of homes in a gesture that reflects the far-reaching effects of the current economic crisis.
Beate Geissler (b 1970) and Oliver Sann (b 1968) are a Chicago-based collaborative artist team. Geissler graduated with an MFA from Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2000, and Sann graduated with an MFA from Academy for Media Arts, Cologne, Germany, in 2000. Their work has been included in numerous group exhibitions in Europe and the United States, including Several Silences at the Renaissance Society in 2009; and the solo exhibition the real estate at Gallery Ftc in Berlin. Geissler is an Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Their monograph Personal Kill will be published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg in 2010.
Support for the exhibition Geissler/Sann: the real estate is provided by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Chicago.
