Performance: | Der Weiße Traum | Hutperformance | Dialogperformance | Swinging Drop | Performance-Reden |
Langfristige Projekte: | EUROPAN | Buchmesse-Veranstaltungen | Ersatzpalast | Kürbispaten | Rathaus Rüsselsheim | Séances en chambre noire |
Film + Video: | Museum Wiesbaden |

 
   
  Performance in der Galerie Lydia Megert, Bern 1989 Luminogramm „Rochus Kowallek mit Frau“, 1993, belichtetes Fotopapier und Handlampe mit roter Glühbirne auf Leinwand, 100 x 160 cm,Fotoleinwand, entstanden während der Performance "Séance en chambre noire" in der Galerie Ribbentrop, Eltville  
  Séances en chambre noire, beginning in 1989

It is not far from the portrait of the art business as a system to portraits of people who work in that business. In this project as well, Kutscher made use of the luminogram technique.

The artist invited the persons he sought as portrait subjects to take part in a secret spiritistic meeting in a small group. These gatherings were held in dark rooms with ghostly atmospheres. The "waiting rooms" were furnished with a round table and chairs and flickering candles; food and drink were provided. In order to speed up the process of assessing each candidate, a "receptionist" distributed leaflets with the text of Marcel Proust's famous questionnaire. After looking over the completed questionnaires, "Dr. Kutscher" was ready to respond to his "patients". Each person was asked to to take part individually in a dialogue "séance" in an adjacent room, which had the look of a combination of a make-shift darkroom, equipped with a red light, and a medical examination room. In the room were a reclining chair and all of the requisite chemical fluids. Recorded 16th-century choral music was played in the background. Visitors to the séance were asked to lie down on the reclining chair, which was covered with unexposed photo canvas. Visitors had agreed in advance to bring along a personal object – in keeping with the séance character of the proceedings – could also serve as a medium. Each visitor was then allowed to select one figure from among Kutscher's portraits of historical heroes with whom he or she wished to communicate through the medium. Following "illumination with words", the corresponding hero materialised and was projected onto the photo canvas.

The double portraits thus produced were always different, and the results were entirely unpredictable. They were framed the same evening and hung on the wall to provide a fitting setting for the celebration that followed. The remaining items from the séance, along with the works created in the evening and the empty glasses and bottles, were left in place as an installation.

Peter Forster