Hans Schabus: Das Rendezvousproblem

by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Winfried Nuflbaummüller, Eckhard Schneider

Let's get best known for his installations and artistic explorations, often recorded on video, Hans Schabus here transforms the entire Peter Zumthor-designed Kunsthaus Bregenz into a complex and convoluted architectonic and mental path of discovery in search of both the self and the building's history. At the museum Schabus blocks the main entrance, requiring admission through a loading dock; the ground floor holds pond liner, topped with puddles, fire hoses and pumps to recall the deluge of 1999, when the Kunsthaus was flooded by Lake Constance; the darkened second floor's projection space documents Schabus's train trips to the museum; and he transforms the third floor into a disorienting “white cube,” undermining the standard notion of exhibition space. This book, designed in cooperation with the artist, traces his strategy through images, conceptual plans and texts (including Friedrich Dürrenmatt's short story “The Tunnel”, and provides a complete record of this highly-regarded emerging artist's most ambitious work to date.

128 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2005

About the author

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921 – 1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist.

Dürrenmatt was born in the Emmental (canton of Bern), the son of a Protestant pastor. His grandfather Ulrich Dürrenmatt was a conservative politician. The family moved to Bern in 1935. Dürrenmatt began to study philosophy and German language and literature at the University of Zurich in 1941, but moved to the University of Bern after one semester. In 1943 he decided to become an author and dramatist and dropped his academic career. In 1945-46, he wrote his first play, "It is written". On October 11 1946 he married actress Lotti Geissler. She died in 1983 and Dürrenmatt was married again to another actress, Charlotte Kerr, the following year.

He was a proponent of epic theater whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author gained fame largely due to his avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire. One of his leading sentences was: "A story is not finished, until it has taken the worst turn". Dürrenmatt was a member of the Gruppe Olten.