#144: Andreas Koch

A significant part of Andreas Koch’s artistic work consists of animated films, a selection of which he is showing at Videoart at Midnight. His films are actually walk-in photographs, or rather, three-dimensional spatial structures collaged from film and photographic material. They suggest tracking shots and lead us in a leisurely, calm movement through a sequence of street views or rooms, from inside to outside and back again. Views detached from the subject and seemingly endlessly wandering through space.

In his most recent film, Koch also uses text material. Koch’s voice off-screen contrasts this strangely real, digitally processed world with a technology-sceptical monologue about the increasing loss of an analogue reality. His early films still come without a soundtrack and will be accompanied on this evening by the musicians Friedemann Bochow (organ) and Marco Brosolo (syn).

As the second of three collaborative events, Videoart at Midnight and the Berlinische Galerie – Museum of Modern Art invite Andreas Koch to show:

Adalbertstraße, 2003,35 min, no sound, accompanied by a live-concert of Friedemann Bochow and Marco Brosolo
This homage to one of Berlin’s most iconic streets begins with the image of a window at the far end of Adalbertstraße in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The frame widens, suggesting an almost infinitely slow tracking shot, and reveals a view of the completely empty street. The one-shot ends with a pan across a firewall at Kottbusser Tor, at the end of which, absurdly, the façade and the window from the beginning of the film can be seen.

Gemeinsam älter werden (Getting older together), 2003/2013/2023, 3 films, each around 0:40 min
Andreas Koch’s statement on Angelika Middendorf and Andreas Schimanski’s project www.25sec.net from 2003 and its remakes ten and twenty years later. Koch repeats his statement on the Berlin art scene and his own goals, ironically questioning the “sustainability” of personal demands and objectives over the years. A continuation of the series is planned for 2033.

Badfilm (Bath film), 2004,1:35 min, no sound
A fictional camera pans impossibly through the artist’s bathroom. It zooms into the mirror without becoming visible and moves to the right behind the shaving foam and toothbrushes, only showing their reflections. In a curve it finally returns to its starting point.

Manchmal ist es besser, zuhause zu bleiben (Sometimes it’s better to stay at home), 2010, 4:42 min, no sound
A slow, supposed long- shot towards a rear courtyard window. The camera zooms into the reflection of the neighbouring house and into an open window. Suspense. There it pans through an interior, again into a mirror and then back out through the window. Nothing more. The film starts all over again.

Manchmal ist es besser, nach draußen zu gehen (Sometimes it’s better to go outside), 2013, 3:50 min
This time the tracking shot takes us through a flat to a balcony window. As the sequence progresses, night falls, the interior lighting comes on, the trees blowing in the wind behind the window disappear and the flat is reflected in the window pane. The camera moves further into the reflection and the flat at night.

Lass uns Freunde bleiben (Let’s stay friends), 2015, 8:05 min
‘Lass uns Freunde bleiben’ refers to the location as the main protagonist, namely the venue of the same name on the corner of Chorinerstrasse and Zionskirchstrasse in Berlin-Mitte. ‘Lass uns Freunde bleiben’ is a café by day and a bar by night and is popular with artists, neighbours and tourists alike. The performers, the guests of the bar, monologue laconically about topics such as age, the flood of images and art. We see a tracking shot through the rooms of the bar, through the window and mirror, in an endless zoom, back to the bar reflected in a window on the other side of the street at night. The texts were published in an accompanying booklet.

Tatsächlich lese ich gerne Zeitung (Actually I like reading newspapers), 2024, 5:59 min
In Andreas Koch’s latest film ‘Tatsächlich lese ich gern Zeitung’, the camera appears to move again in a long, calm motion through a sequence of rooms in his flat, inside and out. At the same time, the artist’s off-screen voice contrasts this strangely real, digitally processed world with a techno-sceptical monologue about the increasing loss of an analogue reality. ‘Now that the reception of the content of texts, images and films is increasingly decoupled from places, i.e. exhibitions, cinemas, printed newspapers and books, this content will be increasingly generated artificially in the future – after the loss of place, authorship will also be missing,’ says Koch, and the whole thing no longer interests him. And as always with him, the film ends where it began, spinning in an endless loop.

Andreas Koch (born 1970 in Stuttgart) studied at the Berlin University of the Arts under Dieter Appelt and Christiane Möbus, from whom he graduated as a master student in 1998. From 1996-2004 he ran the gallery Koch und Kesslau together with Sybille Kesslau. In 2020 he received the art prize of the city of Nordhorn. Andreas Koch is a visual artist, but is also known as the editor of the magazine von hundert, as a book designer and now also as the publisher of the small art book publishing house permanent.

pic: Tatsächlich lese ich gerne Zeitung, 2024 (film still) © Andreas Koch, courtesy of the artist

A co-operation of Videoart at Midnight and Berlinische Galerie – Museum of Modern Art.