Christoph Draeger
31 May - 12 Jul 2014
CHRISTOPH DRAEGER
Unforced Errors
31 May - 12 July 2014
Exactly three years have passed since Christoph Draeger’s first exhibition at lokal_30 in May 2011, in the gallery space in Foksal St. The show juxtaposed two joint projects by Draeger and Reynold Reynolds. The first was Apocalypso Place (2000), a video installation emanating the apocalyptic spirit of the turn of the centuries, comprising a reconstruction of a vandalised apartment and a sitcom-flavoured video with the dwellers of Apocalypso Place engrossed in TV coverage of catastrophes. The second – The Last News (2002) – was a coverage of the end of the world created as a reaction to the events of 9/11 in New York, mocking the way tragic events are presented in mass-media.
The above mentioned exhibition is a good point of departure to present the work of the Swiss artist, whose interests revolve around the theme of catastrophes and their representation in the media. In his practice, Dreager relies mainly on installation, photography and video, in which he uses both archival and self-made footage. His major works include the video installation Black September, which reconstructs the tragic events at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich; the photographic cycle Voyages Apocalyptiques (since 1994), devoted to the elusiveness of the memory of various sorts of tragedies; or the project Tsunami Architecture (2013), carried out with Heidrun Holzfeind and exhibited at last year’s Venice Biennale, comprising a book and a video documenting architecture in the areas stricken by tsunami in 2004.
Similar themes emerge also from the show Unforced Errors, featuring Draeger’s works from the recent years, including the installation devoted to the presidential airplane crash in Smolensk as seen by a foreigner. The found footage video The Man Who Stole the Moon (2010), comprising mostly TV news footage and videos from the Internet, marks an attempt to investigate the media discourse and various theories and hypotheses related to the catastrophe present in the media. Also on display is the latest, two-channel video The Rd. (2013), where Draeger juxtaposes the film The Road from 2009, a story of a father and son’s journey across post-apocalyptic America, with his own version of the journey made by himself and his three-year-old son.
Project co-financed by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
Unforced Errors
31 May - 12 July 2014
Exactly three years have passed since Christoph Draeger’s first exhibition at lokal_30 in May 2011, in the gallery space in Foksal St. The show juxtaposed two joint projects by Draeger and Reynold Reynolds. The first was Apocalypso Place (2000), a video installation emanating the apocalyptic spirit of the turn of the centuries, comprising a reconstruction of a vandalised apartment and a sitcom-flavoured video with the dwellers of Apocalypso Place engrossed in TV coverage of catastrophes. The second – The Last News (2002) – was a coverage of the end of the world created as a reaction to the events of 9/11 in New York, mocking the way tragic events are presented in mass-media.
The above mentioned exhibition is a good point of departure to present the work of the Swiss artist, whose interests revolve around the theme of catastrophes and their representation in the media. In his practice, Dreager relies mainly on installation, photography and video, in which he uses both archival and self-made footage. His major works include the video installation Black September, which reconstructs the tragic events at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich; the photographic cycle Voyages Apocalyptiques (since 1994), devoted to the elusiveness of the memory of various sorts of tragedies; or the project Tsunami Architecture (2013), carried out with Heidrun Holzfeind and exhibited at last year’s Venice Biennale, comprising a book and a video documenting architecture in the areas stricken by tsunami in 2004.
Similar themes emerge also from the show Unforced Errors, featuring Draeger’s works from the recent years, including the installation devoted to the presidential airplane crash in Smolensk as seen by a foreigner. The found footage video The Man Who Stole the Moon (2010), comprising mostly TV news footage and videos from the Internet, marks an attempt to investigate the media discourse and various theories and hypotheses related to the catastrophe present in the media. Also on display is the latest, two-channel video The Rd. (2013), where Draeger juxtaposes the film The Road from 2009, a story of a father and son’s journey across post-apocalyptic America, with his own version of the journey made by himself and his three-year-old son.
Project co-financed by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.