Padiglione della Germania — Attraction in Venice

Faust is German. Faust is folkloric. Faust is a magician; a fraud; a cheat. Faust makes a pact with the devil and dies a spectacular death. Faust is multiple. Faust is retold over and over. The devils of Faust—the different iterations of Mephistopheles—have particular briefs: they incite people to drink; to waste their money; to commit adultery. Goethe’s Faust is a scholar and his Mephistopheles is an academic. He tempts Faust to further his knowledge; extending the frontiers of understanding into forbidden realms. Where there is aspiration there will be dissatisfaction. In Anne Imhof’s FAUST there is a sense that Mephistopheles and Faust have been conflated in, and then dispersed by, the bodies of FAUST’s very beautiful performers. Each is both Mephistopheles and Faust. Each is Frankenstein and the monster. Each is Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Each Mephistopheles is an act of each Faust’s psyche. Each is the maker of their own fate. The body in FAUST is the site where the dialectic of Mephistopheles and Faust unfolds. The movements of the bodies are both stilted and continuing. They are robotic and animalistic. They are GIF-like in their animation. They watch the audience on pulpits surrounding the central space of the German Pavilion. They slowly become cognisant of themselves and their surroundings. FAUST is a performance. FAUST is an installation. FAUST is a soundscape. The soundscape of FAUST is filled with high and low moments. There is very little middle ground. I’m reminded of Hans Zimmer’s blockbuster film scores filled with kinetic sounds building around action set-pieces. There are repetitive themes and minimalistic droning expressions that add dimension to the performance while creating cues for the performers themselves. FAUST is a programmed reality. The sound drives the narrative of the work in its opening moments. The interactions between the performers—mock fighting or wrestling scenes—have a staged and stilted effect that follows the rhythms of the sound. The narrative of FAUST plays out as a series of acts; vignettes; movements. There is plenty of melodrama. These bodies look strangely postmodern. There is science-fiction; there is prophecy; there is allegory. All knee-pads, and Wilson brand tennis socks. All scuff-marks, and sweat-patches. All humming, and moaning. They are choir-like; childlike; statuesque. Sometimes they sing. The sounds infantilise their bodies. They evoke the youthful androgyny of the castrati. The sounds they make and the songs they sing are of a sad resignation. These sounds fill the fortress like cathedral around them and trap them within an anti-nostalgic dystopia. Their aesthetics are health-goth or athletic-grunge. The bodies are akimbo. They are upon the dais and then underneath the floor. They are still and they are moving. They are tense and yet they are lounging. They are tribal. They are neo-Nazi. This is about transconnectedness and metamorphosis. With lighters the bodies create fire, burning parts of their clothing or objects underneath the floor. With soap and water they cleanse each other. The dogs continue to run laps outside. FAUST’s bodies embrace physicality and mortality with a conscious devotion to late-stage Capitalism and its leisure signifiers: Adidas, PUMA, Nike. These bodies are paradoxically sad and sporty. They are macabre and fit. They are young, but they are dead. They writhe in torture and bliss. They are healthy; they are youthful; they are living. They are sick; they are gothic; they are dead. They are vibrant bodies; they are dead bodies. They are scarred and enslaved bodies of the 21st century. They are controlled by fashion, desire and consumption. They are controlled by the image. Like Geothe’s Faust, FAUST has two souls, torn in different directions—one flying up to heaven, and one being pulled down to earth, down into the dust, into the gutter. FAUST is of polarities and discontent. FAUST is of disorder and dissidence. FAUST is...

Biennale 2023: Sustainability instead of Vanity

Germany has no big artsy Installation to offer. After last year's Biennale Arte they offered their pavilion as a place to gather left over materials of other nations' pavilions. This year, they invited some young Germans to visit Venice and help repairing some of the broken down infrastructure.

Great job...

Der deutsche Pavillon war dieses Mal überwältigend beeindruckend. Auf einem riesigen Bildschirm, zu schriller Musik, schwebt ein Raumschiff durch den Nazi-Pavillon. Dabei geht es um einen Platz, den die Israelis für ein weiteres Dasein gefunden haben. Yael Berlana, die Künstlerin meint, das es um ein Aufbrechen ins All als ultimative Diaspora geht. Anmutig tanzende Frauen stellen in einer Videosequenz die Ankunft des Raumschiffes dar. Ersan Aygün erzählt im gleichen Pavillon die Geschichte seines Großvaters, der als Gastarbeiter in Berlin mit Eternit arbeiten musste. Jahre später verstarb er qualvoll am eingeatmeten Asbeststaub. In Vitrinen findet man Fahrscheine, Geldbeutel und weitere persönliche Gegenstände des Großvaters. Alle Räume sind durch Staub bedeckt, der in die Räume geblasen wird. Das Leid, welches dem Großvater angetan wurde, wird bedrückend...