“Gelatin” is a group of four artists from Austria that is invited to give a lecture and realize a project in ATA Center / Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia. As everywhere in the world such an act is a risk (see the description bellow) motivated by the desire to shake up all. Ali, Wolfgang, Tobias and Florian are traveling from Vienna as four bed-headed, unshaven troopers (the underlined words are taken from “Gelatin’s” message) with their very loud and beautiful Puch DS 50 motorbikes (Please, can you all send us your phone numbers, just in case we get lost…!), counting on their kundalini energy fully activated by the time they reach Sofia due to the constant vibration of the root chakra during their trip. They are totally nervous and very happy like in a teenage love affair. They feel this trip is a journey inward, a return to Quadrophenia and the influence of Roger Daltrey in general. They have available a tiny wagon-side car suitable for children… By word of mouth over a thousand people come to see their shows, although the group describes these as either obscene idealism or a return to the real. With tricotage, dancing and food… No wonder they have managed to turn the outsides of the Austrian pavilion at the 2001 Venice Biennial into a swamp – a real one with frogs and so on. Or to bring secretly materials into one of the Twin Towers of the then still existing World Trade Center in New York in order to build up small balcony on its 91st floor… Naturally they keep their projects a secret. Who knows what exactly they are planning to do in November this year to the famous Gagosian Gallery on Manhattan’s West Side or to us on John Paul II Sq. in Sofia… The project is Part 1 of the Guest Program of the Visual Seminar, a collaboration between ICA-Sofia and CAS-Sofia in partnership with relations, a program initiated by the Federal Foundation of Culture – Germany.

Gelatin Catalogue 2005