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Julian Rosefeldt |
In the context of the KunstFilmBiennale 2007 in Cologne the Baukunst Galerie shows the video installation "The Perfectionist" of the young German artist Julian Rosefeldt.
Julian Rosefeldt’s films possess a complex visual quality. The viewer is immersed in lavishly staged sets, which are projected in cinematographic style onto several canvases. Caught in a continuous loop, his protagonists move in heavy rhythms, matched by the action of the camera gliding slowly forwards and backwards. Rosefeldt treats everyday rituals and clichés analytically and ironically, subverting them by shifting the action into the absurd.
"The Perfectionist" is the third part of the “Trilogie des Scheiterns” (Trilogy of Failure) – a series of films which deals with people’s futile striving towards control. "The Perfectionist" shows on the left hand canvas a man caught up in a perpetual inspection of his parachute. Instead of stepping out and flying, this cross-checking becomes an obsessive act: the parachutist has become Sisyphus. Parallel to this on the right hand canvas, the same actor can be seen, as he simulates the parachute drop at home on his ironing board. The ridiculousness of the heavy man on the fragile domestic appliance is underlined by a fog machine being switched on, which all of a sudden can’t be turned off. Thereupon an aircraft turbine rushes into the room – while on the left hand canvas a storm starts to blow, which welds the man to his inflated parachute. The central picture of the installation meanwhile remains quiet: in a cockpit a pilot flicks a multitude of switches with a practiced hand, without however any discernible result. Rosefeldt underscores the absurdity of automatic processes and compulsive behaviour: The dream of flight flounders on the emptiness of ritual. Sisyphus becomes Icarus.
Julian Rosefeldt, born in 1965 in Munich, lives and works in Berlin. He has had solo shows in famous institutions such as Kunst-Werke Berlin (2004)and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2002) and has taken part in numerous group shows, including the 26th São Paolo Biennale (2004), the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2002), Kunsthalle Basel (2000) and PS.1, New York (1998).
Julian Rosefeldt’s films possess a complex visual quality. The viewer is immersed in lavishly staged sets, which are projected in cinematographic style onto several canvases. Caught in a continuous loop, his protagonists move in heavy rhythms, matched by the action of the camera gliding slowly forwards and backwards. Rosefeldt treats everyday rituals and clichés analytically and ironically, subverting them by shifting the action into the absurd.
"The Perfectionist" is the third part of the “Trilogie des Scheiterns” (Trilogy of Failure) – a series of films which deals with people’s futile striving towards control. "The Perfectionist" shows on the left hand canvas a man caught up in a perpetual inspection of his parachute. Instead of stepping out and flying, this cross-checking becomes an obsessive act: the parachutist has become Sisyphus. Parallel to this on the right hand canvas, the same actor can be seen, as he simulates the parachute drop at home on his ironing board. The ridiculousness of the heavy man on the fragile domestic appliance is underlined by a fog machine being switched on, which all of a sudden can’t be turned off. Thereupon an aircraft turbine rushes into the room – while on the left hand canvas a storm starts to blow, which welds the man to his inflated parachute. The central picture of the installation meanwhile remains quiet: in a cockpit a pilot flicks a multitude of switches with a practiced hand, without however any discernible result. Rosefeldt underscores the absurdity of automatic processes and compulsive behaviour: The dream of flight flounders on the emptiness of ritual. Sisyphus becomes Icarus.
Julian Rosefeldt, born in 1965 in Munich, lives and works in Berlin. He has had solo shows in famous institutions such as Kunst-Werke Berlin (2004)and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2002) and has taken part in numerous group shows, including the 26th São Paolo Biennale (2004), the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2002), Kunsthalle Basel (2000) and PS.1, New York (1998).
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