Baignoire à moteur hors bord
Likewise, and as its very title indicates, his Baignoire à moteur hors-bord (Bathtub with Outboard Motor, 2006) can stir up a thunderous swirl in a commonplace bathtub filled with oil-soaked water. Whatever else, the smell of petrol imbues the places where these works are displayed, lending them garage-like overtones at opposite extremes from traditional art venues. These are no autonomous objects – we are reminded of the tanker whose driver viewers never get to see in Spielberg’s Duel, or the 1957 Plymouth in John Carpenter’s film Christine. With Mattenberger, it is just the opposite: although all his works are operational, their functioning is up to each of us.
Excerpt from a text by Jean-Paul Felley & Olivier Kaeser, Luc Mattenberger – The Toxic Poetics of Petrol Engines