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M+M |
„Sunday Monday“ is the third great solo exhibition at the Baukunst Galerie with the artist duo M+M (Marc Weis and Martin De Mattia). The two video installations “Sonntag” and “Montag” initiate a “seven-day-series”; they are shown together with asymmetric montages.
The project “seven-days” is based on the idea of a movie-series and corresponds to key scenes and dialogues of well-known cult movies which are re-interpreted by the artists. Every day of the week is dedicated to a movie, which is presented as a 2-channel film installation.
Christoph Luser is the protagonist in every film, while the other roles will be played by changing actors. Luser can be regarded as a guiding line within the whole series, which is characterized through changes and variations. In this process themes of social and familiar living together are coming into focus.
“Monday” uses the equally entitled scene in Stanley Kubriks movie “The Shining” (1980). Through specific close-ups and ascending tenseness in the dialogues the seemingly everyday scenes are being increasingly perceived as alarming. A father-daughter scene is contrasting a husband-wife projection. “Sonntag” refers to the opening scene of Jean Godard´s “Le Mépris” (1963) and portraits a bored couple in bed. The projection of a father with his daughter in the same situation constitutes a counterpoint. By using two identical scenes with different combinations, the work seeks to address questions of mens´ complex role in the family. In doing so, it explores the possibilities and limitations of male identity. In both double-stagings the analogue rhythm of language and image influences the content and effects the audience in different ways.
Questions and answers occur in "Sunday" on a fine line of naive early-morning role-playing and an erotic ritual. The identity of the father/husband changes constantly between the different roles. In "Monday" a strange and awkward atmosphere for the audience emerges. The content of the other scene affects automatically the increasing tenseness and will be transferred to the man or the women or the child. The scenes have to be interpreted by the beholder. Violence, incest or paedophilia can not be excluded. However, these cannot be ruled out in second thinking and associating. By keeping the situation and the „loop“ open, space and time are intangible and lost in discontinuity.
Besides the video installations photographies of "Sonntag" and "Montag" are going to be exhibited which are assembled asymmetrical by two film stills. The character of a collage can not be seen on first sight. A closer look identifies where the film stills are assembled. M+M are coming back to their own film stills. Besides film footage of "Sunday" and "Monday" motives of the 4-channel installation “Schlagende Wetter” will be on display which was produced for the exhibition project EMSCHERKUNST.2010. “Schlagende Wetter” already coped with the theme of interpersonal tensions within a family in the Ruhr.
The subject of psychological density of emotions, which are changing permanently can be found in all works of the exhibition.
The recent photo works (60 x 120 cm and 14 x 28 cm) are presented unlaminated and framed. The "seven days" are 16 mm shoots each and are projected synchronized as HD videos. They get closer to the events through a new display and production format of expression. Thereby M+M include the beholder emotionally in film and photography. Dealing with the subject of depiction of time and the change of identities are important aspects.
In 2006 M+M gained a three month “artists in residence“-scholarship at the Villa Aurora, Los Angeles. This had been preceded by an USA-scholarship of the Bavarian State in 2002, a scholarship of the Villa Massimo in Rome and a grant through the Bavarian Council in 1997. Furthermore, in 2008 M+M received a visiting professorship at the Behrens School of Architecture in Düsseldorf, in 2001-02 a teaching position at the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst in Zurich and one year before a visiting professorship at the Academy of Arts in Munich. The works of the artist duo were already presented in several major national and international exhibitions, amongst others in the Italian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, the ZKM Karlsruhe, Folkwang Museum Essen, the Pergamon Museum Berlin, the Sprengelmuseum Hannover, the Kunstmuseum Bern, the Museum Ludwig Cologne and the Musée d’Art Contemporain Montreal.
opening:
17th November 2011
6.00 to 8.00 p.m.
Introducery speech by Dr. Sabine Maria Schmidt,
curator and author, Dusseldorf (D)
www.baukunst-galerie.de/m+m
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