The Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin presents Adrian Piper’s first solo exhibition in a German museum. The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1-3 features her same-titled major work recently acquired for the collection of the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
The work consists of three identical, golden reception desks that are placed before gray, ceiling-high walls in the historic hall of the museum. With the assistance of receptionists, visitors can sign a contract with themselves at these desks. In the contracts, each individual voluntarily commits to align his or her future deeds with ethical principles such as honesty and reliability. The entries will then be collected in a registry which all participants will receive at the end of the exhibition. They form a community of people who are likely to be trustworthy in the future.
The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1-3 is equally an installation and a participative group performance. In a dialogical process it deals with the question how trust is build, and thus aims at the foundations of interpersonal relations. Considered in a larger context, it raises philosophical as well as quite practical questions regarding democratic processes and individual responsibility. It does not only call on the visitors to make a personal declaration, but also urges us to think about our actions and the consequences they entail on political, economic, and social level.