The Gelatins by DNA are immersed in the world of subculture and subordinates. They are under the surface, exploring what to bring up to Earth
Gelitin: happy and stressed simultaneously
There is a force of nature that thrives off making people happy and stressed simultaneously. It consists of four men from Austria that met at a summer camp and took it upon themselves to invite joy, humor, and beauty into the world. They formed their group, The Geletins.
Since 1993, Ali Janka, Florian Reither, Tobias Urban, and Wolfgang Garter have been performing, creating installations, sculptures, and new media full of energy that they believe has been left behind. The Gelitins bring the repressed elements of our culture to life, or as they call it, the return of the repressed. Janka explained that a friend of the group David Medal described the Gelitins as north, west, east, and south.
A free-form-based model – Gelitin
Leaving plans, blueprints, and rules at the door, the Gelatin’s creativity embarks on a free-form-based model. They leave behind elements of the unexplored or under explained in their journey as artists to bring life to work that lures people in and keeps their attention.
From Hase, a 50-meter-long toy rabbit seemingly randomly positioned alongside an Italian mountain, to Sweatwat, where the Gelatins flooded the floor of the Gagauzian Gallery in London and converted it into a private water park with furniture stacked on the floor and a nude cello performing acts of chaos. This group thrives on humoristic interactions.
Normal childhoods, normal families
Gelatin Ali Janka described the group as «the witches, the wicked witches of the east, west, and this is Oz. A friend once told me we just don’t know the north wind because we grew up between a lot of Baroque churches, so rural». All four of the Gelatins grew up in ‘normal’ families with ‘normal’ upbringings.
However, the four men were never fully integrated into a typical family and social life, they described themselves as «not complete outcast nerds, but when we met, we had this instant respect because you found another individual as strange as yourself». All it took was one summer camp in 1978, and the rest worked itself out for the Austrian natives.
Obscure and light-hearted entertainment: Gelitin
Finding themselves somewhere between a firm assertion of personal identity and the sheer power of the four together, they create the ability to counteract stresses of daily life and expectations through obscure and light-hearted entertainment.
«You do your things, and then you can do things like comment on his beard and outfit», which was Florian Reither making fun of Ali Janka by grabbing his sweater and petting his beard. «Everything here is accepted. The more abnormal it is, the better it is».
They are two elements that go into everything they do and are a part of the group’s chemistry. «When I met Wolf and Florian, they were dancing, and it looked to me like two freshly butchered chickens that run around like chickens with their heads cut off», narrated Janka.
The Gelitins are chaotically unique
Each of the Gelatins has a direction different from the other, making them chaotically unique. «It keeps our damages alive. It’s like we have been married to three other men for a long time, but there are still some things we don’t know about each other. There are a lot of patterns, behaviors, etc., you don’t know. Still, of course, you can get annoyed with each other if you are married for a long time».
Janka acknowledged that they perhaps have one of the longer ‘marriages’ and compared their creative process to music because all four are putting the same energy into a project or idea to make the masterpiece.
Over-the-top and visually appealing art
Free of bourgeois anxieties and on a mission to make people smile, the Gelitins embark on unique expressions of art, not caring about the art world or the pressures of modern-day culture. «It feels good when you’re able to make an object or exhibition that hits people in the heart. A compliment one can get is if somebody says, I could do that myself because it means it’s accessible».
The Gelatins have no limits. They’ve been on display globally, from Fondazione Prada in Milan to the Louvre in Paris, and their famous work, The B-Thing in New York, and the beauty of their work is available to anyone willing to look their way. All four men play with elements of participation and collaboration as a hallmark of their over-the-top and visually appealing art.
The Gelitins by DNA are immersed in the world of subculture and subordinates
They don’t react to what’s happening in the world and then construct art because, for them, it would be a reaction. Instead, «we’re just doing our own thing, and we make art that develops from our ideas we have been producing over the past few years. Good art is political anyway because it has a message. We don’t need to be reactive. We just do our thing and do it complexly and consequently, and it becomes relevant because of this».
The Gelatins can, at times, foresee developments or social happenings and can recognize them, «subconsciously, you sense what’s already in the air collectively then deal with that». The Gelatins by DNA are immersed in the world of subculture and subordinates. They are under the surface, exploring what to bring up to Earth.
Reither used the LGBTQ+ scene as an example, «take the queer scene, now it’s so mainstream, but it’s been a subculture for hundreds of years. We’ve been consequently doing this, not on purpose, but instinctively when we get the feeling that what we are doing has become accepted mainstream, we take a turn and do something more difficult to digest».
Let other people see or partake in your incompetence
The Gelatins create scenarios of high interaction while comically leaving decorum behind. They invite the public’s senses to be stimulated and interrupt their daily routines with a dose of extroverted humor. «I heard a good definition of a comedian on the radio, what you do, what you live, how you act, and how you work is not perfect, nobody is perfect in any of those, but you let other people see or partake in your incompetence, and that’s enough to be funny», claimed Reither. He continued that the key is to do what you do and not hide it, embrace it, feel it, or sit with it.
Jello for Gelitin
By typing Gelatin in Google, a few results come up, primarily pictures of the food jello. «We changed our name for every act we did in the beginning», according to Janka. They then realized that they needed an element of consistency for the sake of their work and the collaborators involved.
Once they became more famous, the Gelatins decided to stick with their not-so-loved name. It became official when they were invited to an event where they were given orders to stick with their last name used in the previous show, which was Gelatin.
Raw materials
When one thinks of world-famous artists, there may be a connotation of expensive material used to construct the pieces. That couldn’t be further from the truth for the Gelatins. When performing, they will often wear old costumes or clothes they have lying around. Instead of purchasing expensive raw or produced materials, they prefer to work with garbage, recycled goods, or leftover scraps to give way towards a larger budget to work with more people. When constructing furniture, for example, Reither explained that they strive to use mostly wooden structures, no textile, metal, or plastics. The idea is to use furniture parts to make new furniture. There’s no limit.
He further explained himself using the example of a chair, «You have things that are already interconnected to make it stable and somehow create the surface. You create it automatically, and you can’t really plan it. Under this, you would sit on the chair, and this is the leg. Then you cut it off, turn it around, and it’s a candle holder». Reither proceeded to light up the chair leg as a candle holder, demonstrating further their ability to see beyond one object only, instead viewing it as an opportunity for multi-use, unexpected, and exuberant, just like the Gelatins.
Gelitin
«Often when we develop an idea, we are able to formulate it in a way so people can get to know us better as well», explained Janka. Combining all the different styles and ideas and having individual points of view of how it can be utilized have surmounted to build on their signature creative DNA.
When thinking of what to produce next, it’s either one or all Gelatins simultaneously partaking in the creative process, but the idea always comes naturally. «I think the idea is the wrong word because you can quickly have a lot of ideas, but the idea is not an artwork; it isn’t enough, so to come up with something, you need something that’s much stronger than an idea. You need something that transports more in the world», explains Janka.
