Kunsthalle Zürich

Flavio Merlo / Ben Rosenthal

21 Feb - 17 May 2015

Exhibition view
© Photo: Gunnar Meier Photography
FLAVIO MERLO / BEN ROSENTHAL
Bottom Feeders – The Battle of the Cataplasm
21 February- 17 May 2015

We are pleased to announce Flavio Merlo and Ben Rosenthal as the recipients of the Kadist – Kunsthalle Zürich Production Award, offered for the third time to young Swiss artists by the Kadist Art Foundation and Kunsthalle Zürich. Merlo and Rosenthal utilized this grant to conceive and realize Bottom Feeders – The Battle of the Cataplasm, a puppet play staging a crime plot for ten puppets and three stages.

Paul and Ted, two idiots, encounter a dying puppet. A murder, a second, a third. A letter under suspicion. Because comprehending signs may be a deadly virtue. While “bottom feeders“ (a residue-eating fish, or, more colloquially, a creep) eke out a rather miserable living on the expense of others, the cataplasm (a balmy wet pack) entails the capacity to cure. Performed by two actors Bottom Feeders – The Battle of the Cataplasm involves existential contradictions, communicative confusions, and corporeal thresholds.

Actors: Annina Machaz, Garrett Nelson