Treppstein were once world famous! … in the message salon!
Treppstein is a myth.
Esther Eppstein, a young mother with an aborted education, opened the off space “Bilderladen Monotony” on Zurich’s Rennweg in 1995. The showroom on the second floor, with a carpet and shop window on the most expensive street in the city (Monopoly), becomes for a few months the short-lived playground of a young generation and is a direct precursor of message salon.
Selina Trepp and Esther Eppstein meet for the first time in 1995 at the Kanzlei flea market in Zurich and, based on immediate mutual sympathy, decide to plan an action together. Make art yourself and have fun, that’s the motto. “Bodenlose Tiefpreise” (bottomless low prices) is art for sale, staged in a fictitious apartment in Monotony, with furniture from the Brockenhaus and stocked with “cheap art” by and for friends from the art scool and the Zurich post-punk alternative scene.
“Bodenlose Tiefpreise“, 1995, is the first joint action of Selina Trepp and Esther Eppstein.
The young women now think about becoming artists. They invent Treppstein. Is it art? There is no definition for it, 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 … something bigger!
Their next coup “Am 9.12.95 wollen Selina Trepp und Esther Eppstein ein Stück vom Kuchen” („On 9.12.95 Selina Trepp and Esther Eppstein want a piece of the pie“), 1995, 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 by further coincidences and coolness in the message salon (Treppstein Cool 1996) and reaches dizzying heights with the conquest of the film business (Treppstein Casting, 1997) and the production of the dancefloor record (Treppstein The Soundtrack, 1997). Treppstein recover in 1998 from the rigors of success in Appenzell, in the message salon vacation colony, in the caravan.
And … where are Treppstein today?
Treppstein are back in the message salon caravan, in the Migros Museum!
message salon inventor Esther Eppstein invites her long-time friend Selina Trepp from Chicago to spend a week together in her old home Zurich, reflecting, talking and reporting about Treppstein, message salon, women artists’ lives, friendship, career, art and life.
The story of Treppstein continues to be written. On Thursday, March 16, Selina Trepp and Esther Eppstein will meet in front of the message salon caravan for the first public artist talk in Treppstein’s history. They will be interviewed by curator Joel Spiegelberg, a volunteer at the Migros Museum and the first Treppstein expert in posterity.
Selina Trepp (born 1973 in Zurich) has been living in Chicago, USA, since 1996. In her studio she creates paintings, drawings and objects, from which in turn stop-motion films are made. Exhibitions in USA, in museums, art spaces and in public space. She also sings and performs her videolah in Spectralina, the joint A/V project with her husband, musician and music producer Dan Bitney, performing with a diverse cast of musicians such as Tomeka Reid and Caroline Davis in international clubs and art halls.
With thanks to Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst and 25hours Hotel Langstrasse.