Zöllner singen / Singing Customs Officers

Already when passing the long ascent leading to the entrance of Fluentum, visitors are welcomed by sounds that are at first ambiguous and find their origin in the bushes lining the path. For the early multimedia work Zöllner singen / Singing Customs Officers, Jankowski asked customs officers from the Schengen countries France, Italy, Germany, and Austria to sing the national anthem of their country on each respective crossing to the Swiss border. Their partly timid, partly fervent chants were filmed by Jankowski for an exhibition in Switzerland, and the video tapes were then duty paid when they were imported as art transport. This official procedure sealed the economic and symbolic value of the final work of art.

Some twenty years later, transferred to Berlin-Dahlem, the customs officers once again come into focus as doorkeepers. While reciting their respective anthems, they fall into a wellknown, obligatory habitus of the candle-straight, humble and puppet-like posture: like statues they complete the strictly symmetrical appearance of the house façade. At the same time, the chants form an unbridled choir, in which the content, melody, and rhythm of the various hymns merge into an oblique dissonance. In limbo between humorous and deadly serious, Zöllner singen / Singing Customs Officers emphasizes the almost reactionary antiquity of the figure, as a remote-controlled staffage for marking national borders and an ordered community in a world inclined towards borderlessness.