“Serious game with popular half-truths”
Exhibition “Sisyphos in the waiting room” with photographs by Georg Raab and pictures of Martin Becker in Edesheim
Die Rheinpfalz Nr. 180, August 6th, 2002
By Eva Maria Weiemann

It is not more than an extremely normal waiting room atmosphere that welcomes the visitor of the “Produzentengalerie Südwestdeutschland” in Edesheim. Not only at first sight is it an ironical remix of coerciveness, this purposely only almost perfect ambience consisting of a functional but ugly hat stand, chairs matching a magazine table, which seems too small for all the guidebooks, otherwise great emptiness.
The commonness of the waiting room version by Martin Becker and Georg Raab nevertheless at first doesn’t seem created at all. And this purposely: determinism, that is created from the best and most correct advice for a most effective and perfect life – this is one of the central topics of Georg Raab. Or rather the apparent.
At the Alte Stanzerei (old pressroom) the currently exposed works titled “Sisyphos im Wartesaal” (Sisyphos in the waiting room) of the artist, born in Karlsruhe, reflect the critic on a choice of living, that really isn’t one – very direct and partly even very self-depreciating. The alternative that does not exist is expressed most profoundly in the ”Kleiderordnung” (dress code). The 24 times seven photographs show the artist himself from 12 a.m. to 12 p.m., from Monday to Friday, in 24 times seven different outfits, 24 times seven different facial expressions and 24 times seven possibilities to dress oneself properly. Not including the approximately 1000 possibilities of doing it wrong.
That the whole idea represents more than just a game with popular half-truths is also revealed by the “100 women wearing one dress”, a project the artist from Cologne is still working on: he has already photographed 37 women for his series, which seems symptomatic for the main motif of the Weldebräu art prize awardee in 1999: in his photographs and texts the artist looks into the subject of systematization, established order, schematization and pattern character of society, that are at the same time displayed and broken by the 100 women. In spite of the always closed eyes, the same location at all times, the same dress, the pictures seem individual, and this despite the fact that they were intentionally arranged in a tile-like manner. Next to every photograph a number and a statement can be found, that relate in style of a pseudo interview by any sort of women’s magazine und merely should demonstrate: just how little this all says about a person, how a bright red secondhand dress from the 70s appeals to her and if in her opinion men pay less attention to their appearance than women and to what extent the saying “you are what you wear” is true.