Sleeping in Van Gogh museum

Sleeping in Van Gogh museum

Duration:

7 days, for each day 6 hours
Van Gogh museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2005

Photographer:

Constanze Schmidt

Live performance

The live performance is based on Egon Schieles Retrospective Works exhibited in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and as a part of the Egon Schiele-Abramović-De Châtel Project in 2005. During the Retrospective a series of 12 week long performances made by 12 different performance artists took place on „The Self“, an installation designed by Marina Abramović.

As I watch Schieles self-portraits, I am reminded of dead bodies that have slept in the earth for a very long time. All flesh is gone, only the bones are left. If one sees photos of Egon Schiele, he always looks very absentminded, as if he were sleeping or dreaming. As I contemplate the paintings of Schiele, I often recognize myself in them. Whenever possible I use my time to sleep. I wish to be far away from the world, far away from life itself. During the Schiele exhibition I daily sleep on a shelf from 10:00 to 18:00, for one week.

I stand in pyjama during I sleep and move unconscious.

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