Leon Höllhumer
Lord Chesterfield bathes

The artistic practice of Styrian artist Leon Höllhumer is rooted in notions of performativity. As part of his exhibition The Feast, the artist uses a coffin-like installation as a stage. With the performance Lord Chesterfield bathes, Höllhumer adds another scene to his frivolous Gesamtkunstwerk. In Höllhumer’s work, figures are like companions. They do not appear exclusively in one work and then are disappearing again; rather, they are part of an ensemble, populating the same world and reappear whenever an occasion arises. Lord Chesterfield himself is a new figure in the making. The protagonist of the performance is a nobleman with good manners but deviant tendencies.

Höllhumer’s installation Crazy Hot Tub (born to die II) will be his stage. It consists of a coffin lined with denim and filled with bubbling water — like a hot tub. Although the coffin is an object traditionally associated with mourning and loss, it introduces an absurd new dimension here, which nevertheless questions our conventional perceptions of transience: ​“a flesh prison,” as the artist himself would say. The bubbling water, which stands for pleasure, exuberant luxury and a good life, is reinterpreted in this context as a whimsical place – as an oasis of final rest, while simultaneously everything gets hotter and hotter. It is the Lord’s debut. Let’s see how he gets along.