Treppstein is a myth. Treppstein were once world-famous! … in the message salon …
… where are Treppstein today? Treppstein are back in the message salon caravan, in the Migros Museum! The history of Treppstein continues to be written.
Esther Eppstein, a young mother who had dropped out of school, opened the off-space “Bilderladen Monotony” on Zurich’s Rennweg in 1995. The showroom on the first floor, with its fitted carpet and shop window on the city’s most expensive street (Monopoly), became a temporary venue for a new generation for a few months and was a direct precursor to message salon.
Selina Trepp and Esther Eppstein first met at the Kanzlei flea market in Zurich in 1995 and, after immediately taking a liking to each other, decided to plan a joint project. Making art themselves and having fun is the motto. “Bodenlose Tiefpreise”, 1995, is the first joint project by Selina Trepp and Esther Eppstein. “Bodenlose Tiefpreise” is art for sale, staged in a fictitious flat in the picture shop Monotony, with furniture from the Brockenhaus and equipped with “cheap art” by and for friends from the Kunstgewerbeschule and from the Zurich post-punk Sponti scene.
The young women are now thinking about becoming artists. They invent Treppstein. Is it art? There is no definition, later the artists will call their genre “cheap happenings”, interactive DIY happenings with chutzpah. It’s all about the moment, and everyone who takes part becomes part of something bigger. Bigger!
Their first coup “On 9 December 1995, Selina Trepp and Esther Eppstein want a piece of the cake” is the beginning of the story about Treppstein. Through courage, charming ingenuity and a sense of timing, Treppstein become lucky artists whose success in the international art halls is frenetically celebrated through further coincidences and coolness in the message salon (Treppstein Cool 1996) and climbs to dizzying heights with the conquest of the film business (Treppstein Casting, 1997) and the production of the dance floor record (Treppstein The Soundtrack, 1997). In 1998, Treppstein recover from the strains of success in Appenzell, in the message salon holiday colony in a caravan.
Treppstein are now back at the Migros Museum in front of the message salon caravan for the first public artist talk in their history. They will be interviewed by Joel Spiegelberg, curator and volunteer at the Migros Museum and the first Treppstein expert for posterity.
Selina Trepp (born 1973 in Zurich) has lived in Chicago, USA, since 1996. She creates paintings, drawings and objects in her studio, which she then turns into stop-motion films. Exhibitions in the USA, in museums, art spaces and in public spaces. She also sings and plays Videolah in Spectralina, the joint A/V project with her husband, the musician and music producer Dan Bitney, and performs with a diverse cast of musicians such as Tomeka Reid and Caroline Davis in international clubs and art venues.