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Eric Meier, Access All Areas (AAAAAAAAA), 2024 · In-situ wall engraving · 410 × 75 × 0.5 cm / dimensions variable, adaptive to site · Edition of 3 + 1
EUR 13.000,- €
Installation view at Basel Social Club, Basel, 2025
Eric Meier’s Access All Areas (AAAAAAAAA) refers to the international credit ranking system in which AAA is the highest score in predicting the credit risk of a prospective debtor. There are numerous examples though that rating agencies were not flawless and misjudged the current creditworthiness of their debtors. Finally, misjudgements were also the starting point of the financial crisis from 2007. In January 2007, agency ratings or internal bank ratings became a legal obligation throughout Europe as a result of the Basel II Accords …
Eric Meier takes the triple A code and extends it into a fictitious 9 A rating, while also turning it into a chain of interlinked anarchist A‘s, thereby adding a political dimension. The artist works from an archive of signs, tags and codes that he finds on his walks in public urban or suburban space – especially in East Germany – where he photographs them and then later on isolates, edits, and sometimes re-translates them back to the wall. Over the last years Eric has realized several different in-situ wall engravings, some of them permanent as the one in the Hoffmann Collection (Sophie-Gips-Höfe, Berlin).
Eric Meier, Goodbye Deutschland, 2020/2025 · Glass / Fused beer mugs · Dimensions variable · Ed. 100, each unique
EUR 950,- €
Installation view at Basel Social Club, Basel, 2025
Goodbye Deutschland references the German docu-soap of the same name, which follows families emigrating from Germany. It captures their farewells, hopes, and challenges abroad, revealing emotional and personal stories. The series often portrays failures due to economic, cultural, or bureaucratic issues and explores themes of identity, longing, and the pursuit of a new life, reflecting broader German social sentiments within a serialized narrative
The struggles that accompany the departure into new territory are also reflected in the objects on display. The beer mugs, gathered together in a group, have collapsed. When Meier exposes them to a temperature of around 700 degrees Celsius during the fusing process, they lose their original condition and literally go limp. In this state, the mugs themselves look like drunken passengers who have lost their orientation.
The ambivalent references meet in the cult object of the made-to-measure jug, which Meier uses as the basic material for his installation. On the one hand, the drinking vessel is symbolic of the cliché of a sociable German ‘beer nation’, but on the other hand it also refers to the real dark sides associated with alcohol consumption and social precarity. This metaphorical aftertaste runs through the works and at the same time establishes references to a social dimension.
With Goodbye Deutschland, Meier addresses the ambivalent moment of change within German society, which is accompanied by human disruption and social inequality. The humorous tragedy that runs through his work highlights the proximity between hope and failure. Ultimately, it is the question of perspective that comes to the fore, keeping in mind the various social realities that are often contradictory in nature.
