Vlassis Caniaris: Guest worker – Foreign worker

Vlassis Caniaris (1928–2011) came to Berlin on a DAAD grant in 1973 and stayed until 1975. He was interested primarily in questions of sculptural aesthetics with a background in social critique. In conjunction with his exhibition Gastarbeiter – Fremdarbeiter, that was shown not only at the nGbK but also at Heidelberger Kunstverein and Museum Bochum, he conducted interviews with migrants, unionists, and economists. RealismusStudio wrote in the foreword: “Those referred to by the euphemistic label ‘guest worker’ are split into two different beings: a private individual who, when not working, is left to fend for themselves, and a public individual who may claim no rights and who thus is in fact not permitted to exist.” In his environments, Caniaris shows the migrants’ private sphere between isolation and lack of a homeland, between improvisation and discrimination.

Ed.: nGbK/Berliner Künstlerprogramm

Work group: Valdis J. Āboliņš, Tina Bauermeister, Hortense von Heppe, Dieter Masuhr, Bernd Weyergraf