RAINER OLDENDORF
Schmuck
29.09 - 10.11.2006
Sektion film
12 October 6.30 pm
Lecture/screening by the artist at the Goethe Institut. 58, rue Belliard 1040 Brussels
9 November 9 am > 7 pm
One-day seminar (at the gallery) followed by a screening of new 35mm rushes for Marco at Arenberg cinemas, (11 am > 1 pm)
part of the Ecran d'art program, a unique opportunity to explore issues relating to Oldendorf's cinematic technique.
Cinema Arenberg/Ecran d'art: 26 Galerie de la Reine 1000 Brussels
Prolongation until Saturday 18 November 2006
Riesstraße 1, Lörrach, winter 1996/97, 2005 Color print from 24 x 36 slide
Erna Hecey is pleased to present Schmuck, a large-scale exhibition by German born artist Rainer Oldendorf.
Is an artist a schmuck? A jerk, an idiot, or even a jewel (as the German would have it)? Oldendorf's work frequently involves accidents and chance encounters, and the stories he constructs, in contrast to the Bildungsroman form he plays with, have a distinctly non-heroic quality. One of the basic principles of Oldendorf's artistic practice (or rather 'anti-principle' insofar as it is not a rule that stands outside a situation and governs it) is to work in the middle of things, to plunge the viewer into a situation whose multiple elements and varying directions elude any attempt at totalization. A revealing detail: in planning his shows, Oldendorf never works with models. 'Je ne suis pas maquette, je suis moquette' (literally: I'm not into models, I'm into carpeting), jokes the artist, referring to the time he spent working as a carpet layer in his native town of Lörrach. Rather than gazing on the world from above, the artist prefers to work on the ground, mingling and meddling with the ambiguities of life, the way that 'partial' meanings arise and develop unexpectedly (even stupidly) in the course of things, and the stories and myths that connect us to past and future without ever disclosing a final significance.
Schmuck presents a selection of Oldendorf's work in a number of media, including video, slideshow, photography, and sculpture. The front of the gallery, visible from the street, is transformed into a modish living room-like space reminiscent of a set from a Tati film. The installation Legende offers a couch with painted green backdrop where viewers may sit to see a video on a flat screen leaning against the window; beside it is what appears to be a large white monochrome painting, actually a stretched opera folie canvas on a wooden frame. Mounted throughout the gallery and on panels at the entrance of the white cube are photographic works, including the haunting High-level Black Forest, after a tip of Klaus S., November 2001, where traces in the snow of a blackbird taking flight are faintly visible. The central piece inside the cube is Supermarkt, a 'video projection without video', the light from the projector shining an image burned into the lens, the trace from one of Oldendorf's earlier video works. Supermarkt is accompanied by K/Röntgenstrasse 3, a radio play involving a linguistic clash (people living in Holland acting out a German text) and a series of photographic portraits presented as a slideshow. Designer furniture (Jasper Morrison and Charles & Ray Eames) and two specially created beds inspired by an anonymous sixties design structure the show and provide a sculptural subtext.
In the rear of the gallery is Marco 1-5, an ongoing film named after the main actor who plays Paul. This work consists in a double projection: on the right hand side, a video transfer of the original 16mm film, on the left a slideshow of still photographs both from the film and other sources, the two halves forming a kind of cinemascope image. The projection plays on the tension between linear storytelling, the forward advance of the moving image, and the repeated cycle of individual shots which interact with and comment on the film. Installed behind this projection is a collection of eight photographs drawn from multiple sources ironically titled The Text Needs Help. The front desk of the gallery has been fitted with an illuminated cabinet which contains a sparkling jewel-literally, schmuck. Here the artist's over-literal interpretation recalls the hijinks of a Harpo Marx or Hašek's Good Soldier Švejk.
Accompanying the exhibition will be two complementary events in Brussels:
- 12 October 6.30 pm: Lecture by the artist at the Goethe Institut. 58, rue Belliard 1040 Brussels
- 9 November 9 am - 7 pm : One-day seminar (at the gallery) followed by a screening of new 35mm rushes for Marco at Arenberg cinemas, (11 am - 1 pm) part of the Ecran d'art program, a unique opportunity to explore issues relating to Oldendorf's cinematic technique. Cinema Arenberg/Ecran d'art: 26 Galerie de la Reine 1000 Brussels
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press release (UK)
press release (FR)
Camera Austria issue 95-2006 (AT)
Sektion film
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