In terms of social mobility, there is no guarantee of return and the conditions of exchange remain unclear. Hendrik Quast approaches his change of class, from non-academic circumstances to the art world, via detours: re-enactments of various experiences of foreignness, repetitions of coming outs as well as strategies of adaptation.
Image gallery
The material for these performances represents a personal archive of price tags, labels and tags. Interpreting and implementing dress and costume codes of the theater and art world become an incessant process of teasing and passing while changing classes. In a staged meal, Quast plans to eat these labels. Through the act of the price tag meal, Quast reflects on fantasies of conformity, envy of embodiment, unmediated histories of origin and illness, set against the backdrop of class (non)belonging. Quast thus exhibits the artistic activity of the class changer as a fragile process of labeling and re-labeling one's own identity and practice, on and off stage.
“Until I'm convinced, after shopping, that the things suit me and I suit them, I leave the price tags on. But when the exchange period expires, I would rather eat them. Otherwise, it might come out, what I can afford. By having this meal, I'm playing it safe that really no one finds out what I'm worth now.” (Hendrik Quast)
INFORMATION ON ACCESSIBILITYhttps://sophiensaele.com/en/stueck/hendrik-quast-label-for-one#informationen-zur-barrierefreiheit-2362
Additional information
Text and Performance: Hendrik Quast Artistic collaboration: Michel WagenschützGraphic design: Christina MäckelburgProduction: Lisa Gehring
A production by Hendrik Quast in coproduction with Sophiensæle. Media partners: Arts of the Working Class, Berlin Art Link, Das Wetter, Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
A production by Hendrik Quast in coproduction with Sophiensæle. Media partners: Arts of the Working Class, Berlin Art Link, Das Wetter, Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
