Hito Steyerl
11 Nov - 15 Dec 2012
© Hito Steyerl
Adorno's Grey, 2012
Installation with single channel HD video projection, 14 minutes 20 seconds, four angled screens, photographs, handouts
Installation photograph John Bohnen
Adorno's Grey, 2012
Installation with single channel HD video projection, 14 minutes 20 seconds, four angled screens, photographs, handouts
Installation photograph John Bohnen
HITO STEYERL
Adorno's Grey
11 November - 15 December 2012
Installation with single channel HD video projection, 14 minutes 20 seconds, four angled screens, photographs, handouts
Installation photograph John Bohnen For this European premiere, the gallery space has been remodelled into a special architectural environment, with every surface in the space being immersed in a radical colour scheme of grey. At the rear side of the space a series of huge deconstructivist ‘school boards’ function as projection screens.
The film Adorno’s Grey depicts a team of conservators scraping away at one of the walls in the auditorium at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt. According to legend this wall was painted grey at the request of the German philosopher Theodor Adorno, in order to augment concentration and keep the attention of students during his lectures. The conservators were hoping to reveal a grey layer of the original paint. While showing these images of the search for the grey wall, a voice-over tells the story of an incident in 1969, when amidst student protests female students bared their breasts to Adorno during one of his lectures. Adorno panicked, collected his papers and ran away. This was to be his last lecture.
Hito Steyerl works as a filmmaker and author and holds a PhD in Philosophy. She teaches as a professor at Universität der Künste Berlin, and as a guest tutor at several other institutes. Steyerl’s research and interests cover topics as diverse as cultural globalization, feminism, political violence, migration and racism. Her films are a montage of politics and pop, Hollywood and independent film, interviews and voice-over commentaries, which present provocative filmic analysis of the present. Much of her prolific essays can be read in on-line journals such as e-flux and eiPCP.
Hito Steyerl’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Forthcoming is an extensive overview of her recent work at the Art Institute of Chicago which opens November 1st.
Recent solo shows include e-flux in New York; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Henie Onstad Art Centre, Oslo; Neue Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin and Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Her work has been included in important international group exhibitions and biennials such as Witte de With in Rotterdam and Portikus in Frankfurt in 2012; the Gwangju Biennale and Taipei Biennial, both in 2010; the 7th Shanghai Biennial and dOCUMENTA (12).
credits:
Large format photography: Leon Kahane
Research: Alwin Franke
Conservators: Benjamin Rudolph, Sina Klausnitz
Production managers: Maike Banaski, Anna-Victoria Eschbach
Postproduction: Christoph Manz, Maria Frycz
Screen design: Studio Miessen, Diogo Passarinho, Yulia Startsev
Produced by Tblisi Triennial and Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam.
Supported by Nikolaus Hirsch, Sophie von Olfers, Claudia Stockhausen
Adorno's Grey
11 November - 15 December 2012
Installation with single channel HD video projection, 14 minutes 20 seconds, four angled screens, photographs, handouts
Installation photograph John Bohnen For this European premiere, the gallery space has been remodelled into a special architectural environment, with every surface in the space being immersed in a radical colour scheme of grey. At the rear side of the space a series of huge deconstructivist ‘school boards’ function as projection screens.
The film Adorno’s Grey depicts a team of conservators scraping away at one of the walls in the auditorium at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt. According to legend this wall was painted grey at the request of the German philosopher Theodor Adorno, in order to augment concentration and keep the attention of students during his lectures. The conservators were hoping to reveal a grey layer of the original paint. While showing these images of the search for the grey wall, a voice-over tells the story of an incident in 1969, when amidst student protests female students bared their breasts to Adorno during one of his lectures. Adorno panicked, collected his papers and ran away. This was to be his last lecture.
Hito Steyerl works as a filmmaker and author and holds a PhD in Philosophy. She teaches as a professor at Universität der Künste Berlin, and as a guest tutor at several other institutes. Steyerl’s research and interests cover topics as diverse as cultural globalization, feminism, political violence, migration and racism. Her films are a montage of politics and pop, Hollywood and independent film, interviews and voice-over commentaries, which present provocative filmic analysis of the present. Much of her prolific essays can be read in on-line journals such as e-flux and eiPCP.
Hito Steyerl’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Forthcoming is an extensive overview of her recent work at the Art Institute of Chicago which opens November 1st.
Recent solo shows include e-flux in New York; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Henie Onstad Art Centre, Oslo; Neue Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin and Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Her work has been included in important international group exhibitions and biennials such as Witte de With in Rotterdam and Portikus in Frankfurt in 2012; the Gwangju Biennale and Taipei Biennial, both in 2010; the 7th Shanghai Biennial and dOCUMENTA (12).
credits:
Large format photography: Leon Kahane
Research: Alwin Franke
Conservators: Benjamin Rudolph, Sina Klausnitz
Production managers: Maike Banaski, Anna-Victoria Eschbach
Postproduction: Christoph Manz, Maria Frycz
Screen design: Studio Miessen, Diogo Passarinho, Yulia Startsev
Produced by Tblisi Triennial and Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam.
Supported by Nikolaus Hirsch, Sophie von Olfers, Claudia Stockhausen