Performative play is the essence of Erik Schmidt’s art: he himself acts as the protagonist of his films, passing in almost sleepwalking fashion through hunting scenes, a festive dinner party or a society dance in the aristocratic circles of Eastern Westphalia without stopping even once or giving a clear indication as to the direction the film’s story is to take.
The inspiration for Delia Gonzalez recent film In Rememberance is drawn from a passage by Henry Miller, excerpted in the diary of Anaïs Nin. Anaïs describes an afternoon with Henry Miller and proceeds to quote a passage of his writing at length: a first-person narrative detailing, a poetic process of revelation. The story of the ballet in this work is a loose interpretation of the narrative arch of this passage.
Shifting between documentary, historical reconstruction and melodrama, Anja Kirschner's and David Panos' The Empty Plan interrogates the relationship between theory and practice in the theatre of Bertolt Brecht. The film contrasts scenes from Brecht’s exile in Los Angeles - 1941 to 1947 - with productions of his 1931 play The Mother in the late Weimar Republic, New Deal America and post-war East Germany.
The Chicks studios are the stages, institutes, streets, theaters, shacks & palaces around the world. The High Art has seldom gone so messy & the Low is always high, dressed up or without dress at all, mixed into a Audio with Visual triggering of the loops & cut up performances one could ask " where are the shackles?" So Chicks on Speed are performing live their Butt Smack Bungo at Midnight.
Knut Klaßens recordings for Die Geheimnisse des Herrn Onassis (The Secrets of Mr. Onassis) originated between 1999 and 2002 along the production of 13 John Bock exhibitions, starting from Athens to New York, Copenhagen, Rheims, Yokohama, London, Stockholm, Los Angeles, Vienna, Mönchengladbach to the endless 100 days of Documenta 11 in Kassel.
Raised in the age of the digital revolution, Bjørn Melhus, like an archeologist, draws forth elements that he has uncovered from the media and cultural history of the 20th and 21st centuries in order to raise the question of human identity in the context of a culture thoroughly saturated by the media.
Mystischen Tierwesen vor einsamer Kulisse: Das Babylon zeigt in der Reihe Videoart at Midnight Arbeiten von Mathilde Rosier. Wer auf den Vernissagen noch nicht genug Kunst bekommen hat, dem kann im Kino Babylon geholfen werden. In mehr oder weniger regelmäßigen Abständen zeigen der Sammler Ivo Wessel und der Galerist Olaf Stüber dort Videokunst von jungen ...
Mathilde Rosier’s installations, sculptures, paper works, film and music performances often embody fictional offshoots or parts of a narrative. Constellations of self-made costumes, mystic representations of animals or nature often seem like props, an abandoned stage set, or solitary protagonists of a narrative that is entirely unfamiliar. The combination of ...
Benjamin Heisenberg is a German film director and screenwriter. He has directed sixteen films since 1995. But Heisenberg started as visual artist finishing the Academy of Fine Arts Munich in 1998. He shows and comment a selection of his video works from the period 1995 through 2010.
Ein Gespräch über das Nichts, über das große Loch im Selbst vielleicht, das der Kapitalismus frisst; geschlagene 47 Minuten lang, ein absurdes Theater mit einem großen Theatermann - René Polesch.
Seit etwa zwei Jahren laden der Galerist Olaf Stüber und der Sammler IvoWessel zu „Videoart at Midnight“ ein. Der Dezember gehört in diesem Jahr Oliver Pietsch, der sein neuestes Werk „From Here to Eternity“ zeigt. Pietschs Arbeiten sind keine Filme, auch wenn es den materiellen Anschein hat. Aus tausenden von ...
Oliver Pietsch' From Here to Eternity explores the theme of death in the history of cinema; the artist addresses with a hint of humor the idea of immortality interpreted by actors through the course of time. The film is composed of three chapters inviting the viewer to step into a mental wandering, and provoking feelings of recognition and empathy that ultimately lead to narrative re-interpretations rooted in our personal concerns.
Art is a game of the possible. Anyone can always change his decisions, all can be seen, represented, told in a different way, and this game has no serious consequences at first. This allows one to try out experiments with a radical approach that could spell disaster in real life.
Chris Newman presents videos & songs (live!) both date either from the mid-1980s or from the last couple of years (or months). They are existential in nature and have to do with making specific the phenomenon of the act of perception. The songs are performed by Miss Moth in their first public Berlin performance.
Mario Pfeiffer's work explores representational structures and conventions in the medium of film, in locations ranging from Mumbai to California to the Western Sahara. Conceiving each project out of a specific cultural situation, he researches social-political backgrounds and weaves further cross-cultural art historical, filmic and political references into a richly layered practice.
Marc Aschenbrenner and Knut Klaßen became friends during their collaboration with the "early" John Bock (1998-2004). Since this time they have working together in diverse projects: Knut was DoP for Marc, Marc was editor for Knut's films.
With this screening - a cooperation with »basis«, Frankfurt - we are pleased to return to very beginnings of video art. We show early works by the legendary collective Ant Farm.
Through their spontaneous and integrated use of all media, almost in the way of a performance, BitteBitteJaJa create a poetic interpretation of social drama: Where do we come from? Where are we going? What is going on? Unimpressed by criticism and formal deconstruction they create art that ignores false hopes, artistic boredom and intellectual blockades.
The emancipation of voice is a driving force of feminist theories and acts. Ter Heijne both adheres to such incentives while also exposing criticism for the specificity of such gender politics. Motivated by a contemporary relationship to feminist thought in which the individual is not restricted to a proclaimed singular identity but can identify with a diversity of principles and phenomena, she works performatively with these questions.