Julian Rosefeldt
27 Mar - 10 May 2008
JULIAN ROSEFELDT
27th March – 10th May 2008
Opening hours: Thursday 27th March 2008, 8 pm.
Julian Rosefeldt (1965, Munich, Germany) exhibits “Requim” his inaugural exhibition at Galería Helga de Alvear in Madrid. His film work features highly theatrical mise en scènes with cinematographic narration.
One of the works which brought him into the public eye was “Global Soap” (2001) in which he compiled footage of expressions, gestures and language of soap opera actors from all over the world. When put alongside one another, the scenes reveal the fallacy of cultural, national or racial differences.
Perhaps Rosefeldt is best known for his work “Asylum” (2002), an ambitious nine-screen project laying bare the purposeless nature of human life. By means of other theatrical mise en scènes, almost tableaux vivants, groups of people play out absurd and pointless actions against exotic backdrops.
In his “Trilogy of Failure” Rosefeldt continues his exploration of the inconsequential, following the misfortunes of a man “The Soundmaker”, “Stunned Man” and “The Perfectionist”, The man relates to his private and personal surroundings within his apartment, in a surrealist and ultimately tragic way, ultimately the absurdity of contemporary life in a tone bordering on the comical.
In “Ship of Fools” Rosefeldt returns to the theatrical, operatic tone of “Asylum” in a four-screen installation, dissecting the history of Germany in a series of apparently unconnected poetic sequences without any lineal narrative. Caspar David Friedrich’s landscapes, a German shepherd and Wagner’s music are some of the fundamental references within the work.
“Requiem”, is also a four-screen film installation. Filmed in the jungles of Brazil, a series of characters recounting other personages from Rosefeldt’s earlier works, as they wander through the jungle amoungst the deafening crash of falling trees all around.
His vision of the jungle ties in with Romanticism, a sublime, intimidating and unsettling landscape. An almost claustrophobic mysterious place in which one suddenly hears a crackling, the sound of a breaking branch, a tree falling. We never see nor hear the chainsaws doing the cutting. Yet there they are.
27th March – 10th May 2008
Opening hours: Thursday 27th March 2008, 8 pm.
Julian Rosefeldt (1965, Munich, Germany) exhibits “Requim” his inaugural exhibition at Galería Helga de Alvear in Madrid. His film work features highly theatrical mise en scènes with cinematographic narration.
One of the works which brought him into the public eye was “Global Soap” (2001) in which he compiled footage of expressions, gestures and language of soap opera actors from all over the world. When put alongside one another, the scenes reveal the fallacy of cultural, national or racial differences.
Perhaps Rosefeldt is best known for his work “Asylum” (2002), an ambitious nine-screen project laying bare the purposeless nature of human life. By means of other theatrical mise en scènes, almost tableaux vivants, groups of people play out absurd and pointless actions against exotic backdrops.
In his “Trilogy of Failure” Rosefeldt continues his exploration of the inconsequential, following the misfortunes of a man “The Soundmaker”, “Stunned Man” and “The Perfectionist”, The man relates to his private and personal surroundings within his apartment, in a surrealist and ultimately tragic way, ultimately the absurdity of contemporary life in a tone bordering on the comical.
In “Ship of Fools” Rosefeldt returns to the theatrical, operatic tone of “Asylum” in a four-screen installation, dissecting the history of Germany in a series of apparently unconnected poetic sequences without any lineal narrative. Caspar David Friedrich’s landscapes, a German shepherd and Wagner’s music are some of the fundamental references within the work.
“Requiem”, is also a four-screen film installation. Filmed in the jungles of Brazil, a series of characters recounting other personages from Rosefeldt’s earlier works, as they wander through the jungle amoungst the deafening crash of falling trees all around.
His vision of the jungle ties in with Romanticism, a sublime, intimidating and unsettling landscape. An almost claustrophobic mysterious place in which one suddenly hears a crackling, the sound of a breaking branch, a tree falling. We never see nor hear the chainsaws doing the cutting. Yet there they are.