Andreas Sell commissions everyday, almost unconsciously performed actions like chewing or playing ball, turning them into consciously performed activities through some kind of remuneration (money, friendship, sympathy, etc.). Chewing a piece of toast was extended to about 18 minutes in the created audio piece, playing ball against a payment of 100 dollars was finished after 5 minutes. The acting characters became a part of the work, their actions became a piece of art. Watching these everyday actions, which usually do not require any further attention, in an artistic context allows for a moment of abstraction, which makes it possible to reflect on the structures of the activity and to perceive it differently.

Individual abilities and skills are other levels of action that Andreas Sell focuses on in his work. For example, he paid a mother and her daughter to have themselves exhibited in a gallery room as living sculptures together with their resumes. He paid for 30 days of music lessons for a woman who did not play any instrument before and then invited her from Beijing to a little solo concert at a gallery in Berlin. This work places the participants’ own presence and the consequences and dimensions of personal actions at the center of the aesthetic experience. Therefore, the points of action in a person’s vita also tell about physical and psychological possibilities of expression of an individual. Furthermore, in his works Andreas Sell always asks about possibilities for the artist to manipulate. By giving the reason for why selected people choose to have themselves exhibited as a part of his artistic work, he gives his work a social environment. This lets him take an analytical look at the physical and social scope of action as a measurable unit for the social circumstances in which the actions take place.

Based on this interest, Andreas Sell also developed the work that is presented at Platform China. In cooperation with four other people, he collected 6,380 personal resumes of passers-by in Beijing. The information includes the gender, date of birth, education, job, and hobbies, creating a personal profile that states specific decisions and actions in the lives of the individuals, which they wrote down at an average of 1 minute. 3,000 of the collected profiles will be transformed into a visual, abstract mural with a size of 16.5 x 3.7 m. Furthermore, everyone who gave his personal profile will be invited for the opening of the exhibition, with the exception of those who left no contact information. The compile of all 6,380 profiles is published as a book in English.

Anne Fäser