Dream: I have an exhibition with a class photo from my primary school days. I am in the picture twice. Still hanging on the walls are the works from the last exhibition (this is part of my concept). Green geometric-abstract prints. In the room tables with installations made of different materials. At 1/2 past 3 there is 1 reception. Someone tells me it’s important to be there to shake Jan Hoet’s hand. I do want to put on 1 special outfit in the colors of my installation. Therefore one has to moisten small bright adhesive pads + apply them to the skin. Once well rubbed in, the color of the face changes.


Clemens Sels Museum, Neuss, 2015




The realm of dreams provides endless possibilities for phantasms, which in the dream reality lead a life of their own. Attempts to grasp this rationally during the process of waking mostly result in just a few remembered fragments. […] Of crucial importance for the installation is the motif of the school photograph with the young Barbara Breitenfellner. It almost entirely fills two walls of the Print Room in the Clemens Sels Museum Neuss. The outsize dimensions and the fact that it is a print of the negative deform the likenesses of the children and turn them into grotesque figures in a surreal world. The artist further enhances the bizarre impression of the scene by inserting a second picture of herself into the photo, as in her description of the dream sequence — her double is a mirror image of the first shot of herself. […] The perpetual changeover between elements of reality that have found their way into the dream world and pieces from the dream world that are transformed into reality, leads to a sensitive exploration of the boundary that runs between dreams and reality. The transitions between the two, which are often felt to be fluid, result in deep insecurity about the ambiguity of one’s own perception. This phenomenon is also reflected in the integration of geometric abstract prints in the scenario. From the museum’s collection Barbara Breitenfellner selected eleven of a series of twelve coloured silk-screen prints from Josef Albers’ famous series ‘Homage to the Square’ of 1967 as references to her dream. […] Barbara Breitenfellner deliberately causes further perplexity by making absurd transformations of her dream notes in the installation. This applies particularly to the colourful little self-adhesive pads, which morph in the installation into coloured Kinesio tapes around a china dog. […] In her four-part installation Barbara Breitenfellner asks whether it is possible to depict dreams at all — with humour, irony, and subtlety. (Uta Husmeier-Schirlitz)

Material: Dream text on wall, photo wallpaper - processed archival photo, 11 silkscreens by Josef Albers (from the collection of Clemens Sels Museum Neuss), honeycomb boards, wooden trestles, ceramic figure, colored tape — produced by 25/25/25, Kunststiftung NRW Dimensions: 3,3 x 7,7 x 5,7 m

Installation views: Thomas Bruns
View of billboard: Melanie Stegemann