The undertaking is driven by hope: bare handed the artists will drag a self-made boat
over the Alps. Neo-romantic aspirations and sisyphean exertion characterize the mission, whose apparent aim is to launch the boat into the lagoon in time for the most distinguished art event in the world, the Venice Biennale – to eventually celebrate the victory of art over nature in a triumphal journey up the Canale Grande or to fail dramatically.
This route is arduous and will physically and mentally demand a great deal even from
the experienced mountaineers. The major part of the four to five-week expedition will consist in traversing the main divide of the Alps on foot.
It is projected that the work be integrated into the 2011 Venice Biennale and for it to
be documented there by means of the daily journals entries of the expedition in written and illustrated form. A series of photographs will be generated as well as a video work, which will be presented with the boat.
Following the structure of classic drama, which will either end in apotheosis or in catastrophe, the piece focuses on the heroes and their actual but also metaphorical undertaking. The art remains central, which is manifested on the one hand in the self-made boat (in the sense of sculpture), and on the other hand in the act itself. Thereby it is only a metaphor for man's aspiration to reach beyond his limitations, which can only end – sooner or later – in catastrophe or salvation.