intention: lecture series

Real time encyclopedia of world art is projected as a series of four lecture performances to be conceived, directed and performed by director and performer David Weber-Krebs and dramaturg Jan-Philipp Possmann. For individual lecture performances of the series we will seek the support of additional single artists. Each lecture performance discusses one specific art practice, strategy or art piece and our personal reaction to that art practice, strategy or piece. We will each suggest the themes for two of the four lecture performances and will then decide on the roles each of us takes on for each presentation, allowing us to switch the roles of director, performer, dramaturg, etc.

Together with the 2005 lecture performance the consequence of infinite endings the total series will result in a body of five lecture performances constituting the first step to a performative and highly subjective art encyclopedia. The time frame for the development of the series is open, so are the places of development and presentation. The project is to be continued.

Background

For the last years we have been working together on theater performances dealing with specific strategies and themes in art history. In 2005 David presented the lecture-performance the consequence of infinite endings, summing up and theoretizing his long time interest in romantic art, and more specifically in aesthetic strategies of the sublime. The consequence of infinite endings was intended as a step in between two major stage productions, this performance (2004) and Fade Out (2005), reflecting on the first and preparing for the second. Since we both regard intellectual debate and reflection as vital and very much enjoyable in the process of making art, presenting a lecture performance seemed a natural step. Using this format to link themes and questions from past and future projects proved equally useful.

Communication and politics – We regard art practice as an effort in communication. Maker and viewer interact in this communication very much like in an every day conversation, with the difference that this is a highly stylized form of communication following specific rules. Like any human interaction art establishes power relations. It consequently deals with questions of autonomy, submission and control. Whether we regard a theater performance as an utopia of ideal inter-human relationships or it’s worst and most authoritarian anomaly – the ethics of representation lie at the core of any art practice. As theater makers we have always regarded this aspect of interaction highly and have put great care on the design of the audience-performer/maker interaction. The format lecture performance is of particular interest to us, because it allows us to play with forms of authority, reliability and to mix different discourses.

Our position – As part of the lecture performance the consequence of infinite endings the above photo was taken which depicts us looking at a painting by Caspar David Friedrich in a gallery in Berlin. The joke is that we portrait ourselves both as onlookers and as part or extensions of the painting, playing the roles of the typical watching figures placed in the foreground of many of Friedrich’s paintings. This position of being inside and outside, watching and participating at the same time, is an important element of our artistic work. For this project we see ourselves as art lovers – amateurs in the literal sense – critics and practitioners in one. The aim is, to take up a position that fluctuates between the position of our audience, the object of discussion and us as lecturers. By doing so, we invite the audience to do likewise.

Our interest – We create art out of fascination with specific art practices, or more precisely, out of fascination with our experiences with specific art practices, be they contemporary or historical. Enjoying art can be quite an ambivalent experience. Often we feel most fascinated by those works of art who’s effect on us we fear or despise. The ethics of representation lie at the bottom of this fascination. As an audience we enjoy and indulge art, as artists and political beings, we try to reflect and contextualize our experiences with these artworks. Art continues to confuse us and continues to challenge our political and aesthetic convictions. It is this moment of confusion we are interested in.

Approach

The following project is picking up where we left off with the consequence of infinite endings in 2005. We realized that the format lecture performance is an ideal format for us to venture into a closer mode of artistic collaboration and exchange than we used before. The series of four lecture performances will allow us to switch the roles of dramaturg, director, performer and to add new levels and techniques to our established working modes.
Just like the lecture performance in 2005, these presentations should work as individual art pieces, standing for themselves, but can also be explorations, reflections and preparations for larger stage works. They will give us the chance to explore the topics in more depth and to let an audience participate in these explorations in regular intervals. The whole project is intended as an open series in the sense of an unfinished encyclopedia. Like Wikipedia it will hopefully extend over time and other artists and theoreticians will get involved and contribute to it.

Realization

We would like to develop this project together with the institutions we have been in good and productive working relationships over the last years. The production and presentation can take place at one or several of these venues. Our idea is to meet regularly in Berlin and Amsterdam, to develop the themes and forms. We would then like to go on residencies for between two and four weeks at the participating institutions and present the results there as well. The technical set up for each lecture performance will be simple and will consist of digital and analog projections, sound equipment and a basic stage set up. The costs for each performance lecture will vary depending on the demands of each project (additional performer, video technique etc.). There will be a fix base honorarium for each lecture performance for David and Jan-Philipp, independent of the individual tasks and roles.

Themes

At this moment we can name four possible starting points for the series. We list them here to illustrate the general idea further.

die moorsoldaten

When I first heard the live recording of Hannes Wader singing die moorsoldaten in 1977 I was moved by the beauty of this bitter-sweet old melody, attracted by Wader’s blues influenced guitar style and intimate singing and irritated by the obnoxious shouts and hollers from the audience recorded on it as well. The song itself is a relic of the Nazi-genocide, written by inmates of a concentration camp in 1933. Here it becomes a protest hymn of young communists in the politically charged late seventies in West-Germany.
I felt that the recording carried a lot of the spirit and paradoxes of that period, merging different and possibly opposing influences and intentions in one historical moment. I became intrigued by the many layers in this recording and started wondering about the nature of this artifact. What is carried by the recording: a song, Wader’s performance, a concert, a historical moment? How do I have to imagine this live moment? Am I a witness, am I participating by listening to the recording?
(jp.)

the execution

This picture is called execution of the sacred heart of jesus by militiamen at cerro de los angeles, august 1936. It was taken during the Spanish civil war. I got struck by the violence of such an act but also by the symbolic power of the iconoclastic gesture. What makes the image and the gesture so strong is the fact that the dispositive of shooting the statue is exactly the same as if it would have been a human of flesh and blood. This leads to a reflection on iconoclasm as an ideological instrument of war. What happens when you „execute“ an image? Who do you kill there?
Another interesting topic of this image is the figure of the woman at the far right of the image. The practical “pose” of putting her hands on her hips in an “expectative” position give her a peculiar role in the scenery. She seems to wait for the men to finish their job in order to do hers. She seems to wait for them to come home for dinner… (dwk.)

the stolen painting

I discovered this press photo in an article that appeared eleven years after the burglary of several famous romantic paintings from the Shirn Gallery in Frankfurt/Main – among them William Turner’s shadows and darkness. For the lecture performance I treat the photo as an art piece in its own right, relating to another art piece and its absence and commenting on this art piece and the situation on several levels. Ironically the empty space on the picture was once occupied by a painting that can itself be described as an empty space: Turner’s paintings come as close to abstract art as any painting in the 18th and 19th century and shadows and darkness is not more and not less than what its title promises. The photographer managed to create an equally shadowy atmosphere here, as if he was trying to quote the air of the romantic period.
The other intriguing aspect of this photo is of course the fascination an empty spot on the wall apparently holds for the group of cameramen and news reporters. I started to wonder about the nature of such an empty spot and what the cameramen were hoping to catch on film, when filming the spot. It looks more like an occult session, like a scene out of a Polanski movie, than a news investigation. Yet nothing occult is happening here: A painting has been stolen and was later returned for an unknown ransom.
(jp.)

the aborted disappearance
The consequence of infinite endings was the document of five years of work. I was analysing a phenomenon in contemporary time based arts where the subject loses itself into infinity and attains to redemption. This can take numerous forms: a slow fading out of light on a stage or a screen, the gradual disappearance of a form from very big to very small, until it becomes beyond our perception or an extensive progress towards immobility.
The aborted disappearance will take back this topic and show how in film this movement is often used to show that something is leaving. But before we arrive at the very end of a movement it is always aborted with a “hard” cut. If it wouldn’t be stopped we would be at the end and the subject would lose himself into infinity. The use of this dispositive constitutes an ethical decision from the maker who doesn’t want to let his hero die yet but who announces this death or departure already. Some examples across history are paranoid park by Gus van Sant or le phantôme de la liberté by Luis Bunuel but film history is full of examples used in very different contexts and for different means.
(dwk.)