The presence of the houses was so powerful that ever since, from time to time, I have briefly imagined myself back in their claustrophobic space. Sometimes it will be a sweet, rotten smell of the kind that impregnated the gloomy rooms that acts as a trigger. Or I have come across others who made appointments to see the houses, all of whom want to share their survivors’ stories: Did you make it down into the cellar? Or: Did you see the pornography? Or: Did you hear a baby crying? There have not been many installations that so successfully isolate the viewer with his or her own fears. – Tim Adams, The Observer, 2 January 2005.
Die Familie Schneider consists of two films made by German artist Gregor Schneider moving through a claustrophobic installation realised in two neighbouring houses — 14 and 16 Walden Street. Bringing his long-standing obsession with repression, reproduction and repetition to a very ordinary street in London's East End, Gregor Schneider constructed identical interiors inhabited by identical twins doing the same unseemly things; a woman, perpetually washing the same dishes, a child wrapped in a dustbin bag, and a naked man in a shower. The hand held camera tracks its way through the interiors of each house, dwelling in an almost forensic way on te ordinary but nonetheless disturbing details. The 'double' film can be accompanied by a display of 176 framed black and white photographs from inside the house.
Image: Die Familie Schneider (detail), 2004.
at Turner Contemporary
Margate, 17 October 2015 - 17 January 2016
RISK is another pearl from Turner Contemporary, emphasising their continuous dedication to thought provoking and engaging exhibitions. - Anna Bang, VOLT Magazine, 15 October 2015.
Gregor Schneider's film of Die Familie Schneider is part of 'Risk' at Turner Contemporary, a group exhibition that puts creative risk-taking under the spotlight with over 60 works from the mid-20th century to the present day by major international artists, including Marina Abramović, Francis Alÿs, Carsten Höller, Gerhard Richter and Ai Wei Wei.
Image: Die Familie Schneider installed at the Turner Contemporary Margate in 2015. Photograph: Stephen White.