The artist duo Deutschbauer/Spring came together during the political upheavals of the year 2000. They prefer to describe themselves as serviceable commissioned and auxiliary artists and as poster artists. They already have over a hundred such posters. "Posters are the most fun, posters are material for everyone," they say and generously distribute the A1 sheets among their steadfast fan base. They also use their posters to advertise their exhibitions, performances and events in the fields of theatre and visual arts. Their actions, in which they only marginally work with concepts, have successively advanced from "neighbourhood tips" to subtle media events. Their "happenings" can hardly be categorised in the classic topos of urban environments. Nevertheless, her themes are specifically political, and even more a reflection of the state of the Austrian soul.
In the work Die Stellvertreter, the artist duo stands in for the skyscrapers of the World Trade Centre in New York, which were destroyed in a terrorist attack in 2001. In addition to the photography, a video work was also produced.
(Christoph Fuchs)

After 11 September - another tour of art cologne in November 2001

[...] The video work shows two men of a similar type jumping up and down in front of a bright blue sky in the middle of the Manhattan skyline. In this digital montage, the two men are almost twice as tall as the skyscrapers. The same clothing (black suit with white shirt) and the same posture initially give the impression that they are twins and it becomes clear that this work is a response to the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) on 11 September 2001.
What do two men jumping into the air in a skyscraper setting have to do with the seriousness of the real attack and its far-reaching consequences? In this work entitled "The Substitutes" (which was also produced as a photographic work), the two artists depict themselves. As a substitute for the towers that no longer exist, they want to make it clear to the viewer that these two skyscrapers are now missing. Or are they even trying to replace this gap - at least imaginatively - with their leaps into the air? Can people fill gaps in architecture? Can they reach the height of the now missing WTC despite their very sporty behaviour? Probably not. But Deutschbauer & Spring's artistic concept envisages a vicarious imitation - in this work and in the previous ones. Their commentary on the photo and video work reads: "Carried away by the general expressions of grief, we also felt compelled to express our grief by creating the image 'The Substitutes' in order to provide a substitute for the loss of the WTC as quickly as possible." They placed the photo work with an advertisement in "Die neue Kronenzeitung" on 14 September 2001, which began with the sentence "We mourn for America" and ended with the appeal "Let us all stand together now!".
In view of the scope and the emotions that everyone still carried within them in the face of the harrowing images on television, this endeavour to create a substitute in person comes across as self-overestimation, as sheer mockery and as a poorly done, tasteless comic that is far from being able to capture the tragedy.
But can a work of art deal with this terrible act at all? Does art have the power to comment on this event, to respond aesthetically - and to do so within such a short time between the attack and the exhibition presentation? Does art even have the means to approach this reality, to catch up with it and to counter it with the necessary distance to the event without losing its status as art? Certainly, because there have always been images of history, war, violence and catastrophe that conveyed the depicted event with great precision and quality. Today, however, this task has mainly been taken over by the media. Artists, on the other hand, have to put up with being criticised for "jumping on a bandwagon". For some, however, it is an inner necessity to deal artistically with this and similar themes.
In his "Aesthetic Theory", Adorno said: "Art is the antithesis of society". It must always carry the other within itself in order not to become the same as society. A true sentence that helps interpreters to separate the good from the bad. And, as Gerhard Finck - who curated an exhibition on "Catastrophes and Disasters" at the Museum Folkwang in Essen in 2000 - said in an interview with the Osnabrücker Zeitung on 26 October 2001: "The first reactions (to catastrophes, U.L.) do not have to be the most aesthetically significant."
In recent times, many artists have addressed social issues, they have opened a "people's boutique", like Christine Hill, or, like Regina Möller, they have founded a magazine that at first glance resembles a fashion magazine - or they have offered other services. But since 11 September, we have been dealing with a socio-political event that has deeply affected the feelings of almost everyone in the world and united them in this common feeling of grief and anger - even if the sense of community only lasted a short time. [...]
(Ulrike Lehmann, in: Kunstforum international, Vol. 158, 2002, translated by deepl.com)