Horse-Led Procession

Horse-Led Procession

Performance, Berlin, 20–21 September 1996

As part of the opening of the gallery Kunstruimte Berlin at Sophienstraße 18, the Finnish artist Tuire Lampila led a procession through the city together with two horses. The route symbolically connected the new gallery in the courtyard of the Sophiensäle with the bar St. Kilda / Tripsdrill in Prenzlauer Berg – two hubs of Berlin’s art and nightlife scene at the time. At a calm pace, at once sculptural and performative, Lampila staged a movement between public space and artistic terrain – a poetic ritual of opening and return.
Ahead of the first vernissage at Kunstruimte Berlin, Tuire Lampila initiated a “Horse Guidance”. At 2am she set out with two horses and invited guests from the district of Mitte to Prenzlauer Berg and back. The horses wore fluorescent leather ornaments on their backs, shaped as a map of the route just travelled. Three times the horses went separate ways, tracing an imaginary network. Alongside her sculptural work, Tuire Lampila develops concepts for actions engaging with mythological and historical events and their transferability to the present.