Dezeen.com – New York Bar Oppenheimer by Tobias Rehberger
Tobias Rehberger creates a replica of Frankfurt’s Bar Oppenheimer at Hôtel Americano in New York and covers it in geometric stripes.
New York Bar Oppenheimer has exactly the same size and proportions of the original Bar Oppenheimer, a regular hangout for the artistic community in Frankfurt. It contains the same furniture and details, from the lighting fixtures to the tall radiators.
Unlike the original, Rehberger has decorated every surface of the replica bar with black and white stripes, which zigzag in every direction and are interspersed with flashes of red and orange.
The patterns are based on the concept of “dazzle camouflage”, a tactic employed during World War I to make it difficult for soldiers to pinpoint a target.
New York Bar Oppenheimer opened last week at Hôtel Americano, coinciding with the annual Frieze New York art fair. Functioning as both an installation and a working bar, it will remain in place until 14 July.
“The way I look at it is like a suitcase,” Rehberger told Wallpaper magazine. “I’m going to be in New York for a bit so I’m able to pack up my favourite bar and take it with me. And because I’m there for the art fair, the bar has to come dressed as a work of art.”
Here’s some more information from the exhibition organisers:
Tobias Rehberger Bar Oppenheimer
Pilar Corrias, London and Hôtel Americano are pleased to announce a new sculptural artwork, Tobias Rehberger Bar Oppenheimer by the German artist Tobias Rehberger. Presented from 11 May until 14 July 2013, the piece opened to coincide with Frieze New York and is on view at Hôtel Americano.
Rehberger creates objects, sculptures and environments as diverse as they are prolific. Drawing on a repertoire of quotidian objects appropriated from everyday mass-culture, Rehberger translates, alters and expands ordinary situations and objects with which we are familiar. It is in this spirit that Rehberger has created a ‘second edition’ of Bar Oppenheimer, the Frankfurt late-night hangout he frequents and which is at the heart of the city’s artistic community. The work is a sculpture and, at the same time, a fully functioning bar. Rehberger remains faithful to the essence of the original bar: dimensions of space and objects are replicated and re-imagined to produce a familiar yet unfamiliar environment. Vodka Steins, Rehberger’s own favorite drink, are seconded to New York, transporting the artist’s own Frankfurt Oppenheimer Bar experience to Hôtel Americano for two months only.
A place where creatives and thinkers meet to form, discuss, argue, and pursue ideas and follies late into the night, Bar Oppenheimer acts as a catalyst for change. Repatriated in New York as Tobias Rehberger Bar Oppenheimer, the artist is curious as to the effect that its influence will have on a new audience.
11 May – 14 July 2013
Tues – Sat 5pm – midnight
Hôtel Americano, 518 W. 27th Street, New York
I think that this is a great project by the designer. It’s an awesome crazy design especially for a bar. I would sit down and take a drink there, just not too many. LOL.
Would you sit down and take a drink? What kind of effect do you think it will have on people? Let me know what you guys think about the installation.
~Laverne
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