Katrin Lock & Tim Brotherton
24 Jun - 23 Jul 2011
KATRIN LOCK & TIM BROTHERTON
The After Gertrude Stein Trilogy
24 June – 23 July, 2011
The exhibition The After Gertrude Stein Trilogy presents photographs and video works by the artist duo Katrin Lock and Tim Brotherton in the neighbouring project spaces uqbar and Kronenboden at Schwedenstrasse 16. The artists reinterpreted Gertrude Stein’s Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights through a participartory process in collaboration with young actors from Johannesburg, South Africa (Bag Factory, 2008), in Berlin (P14 youth theatre of Volksbuehne, 2009) and in Brussels (art and performance centre Beursschouwburg, 2010). The results are three very different versions of the material, and are shown as film adaptations.
In Stein’s version Dr. Faustus promises his soul to the devil, if he in exchange could make Dr. Faustus the inventor of electrical light. The fulfilment Dr. Faustus was hoping for does not come about, leaving him disillusioned and disheartened. In the manner of Dadaist writing the play is open-structured. Stein creates multiple identities for her main characters, who express themselves through fragmented and disembodied voices and endless repetitions. The characters are trapped in the same frustrating inability to understand and act in a world, which is increasingly dehumanised by modernism and progressing technology.
The play with its vital questions about morality, identity, values, providence, and betrayal in modern societies was a starting point for discussions in each group. Through a particapatory process the artists and actors developed the narratives, scenes and setting in response to the following questions: How do members of a generation, who have grown up in an already globalised world position themselves within it? How are they affected by the all-present ideologies to invent and prove themselves as subjects in a neo-liberal age? How do they position themselves in a world in which the danger of unemployment on the one hand, and the ever-growing materialism, are all present and possibly shape the lives of the majority of people? The project tried to motivate the participants to express their aspirations and formulate their personal visions of the future without using the framework of commodities to signify success and wealth.
The exhibition also shows photographs of the series Smokes and Mirrors that was made in South Africa. The streets of Johannesburg are lined with posters of tabloid newspapers and their sensationalist headlines. All present they are part of everyday cityscape. In bloodthirsty headlines they mark the remaining social and racial apartheid within the South African society. In this series the posters were made into costumes and clothing. In the tradition of “tableaux vivantes” the actors from After Gertrude Stein pose in the deserted inner-city goldmines. Smokes and Mirrors refers to John Heartfield’s photomontage, Those who read bourgeois newspapers will become blind and deaf. Away with these blinders!
The After Gertrude Stein Trilogy
24 June – 23 July, 2011
The exhibition The After Gertrude Stein Trilogy presents photographs and video works by the artist duo Katrin Lock and Tim Brotherton in the neighbouring project spaces uqbar and Kronenboden at Schwedenstrasse 16. The artists reinterpreted Gertrude Stein’s Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights through a participartory process in collaboration with young actors from Johannesburg, South Africa (Bag Factory, 2008), in Berlin (P14 youth theatre of Volksbuehne, 2009) and in Brussels (art and performance centre Beursschouwburg, 2010). The results are three very different versions of the material, and are shown as film adaptations.
In Stein’s version Dr. Faustus promises his soul to the devil, if he in exchange could make Dr. Faustus the inventor of electrical light. The fulfilment Dr. Faustus was hoping for does not come about, leaving him disillusioned and disheartened. In the manner of Dadaist writing the play is open-structured. Stein creates multiple identities for her main characters, who express themselves through fragmented and disembodied voices and endless repetitions. The characters are trapped in the same frustrating inability to understand and act in a world, which is increasingly dehumanised by modernism and progressing technology.
The play with its vital questions about morality, identity, values, providence, and betrayal in modern societies was a starting point for discussions in each group. Through a particapatory process the artists and actors developed the narratives, scenes and setting in response to the following questions: How do members of a generation, who have grown up in an already globalised world position themselves within it? How are they affected by the all-present ideologies to invent and prove themselves as subjects in a neo-liberal age? How do they position themselves in a world in which the danger of unemployment on the one hand, and the ever-growing materialism, are all present and possibly shape the lives of the majority of people? The project tried to motivate the participants to express their aspirations and formulate their personal visions of the future without using the framework of commodities to signify success and wealth.
The exhibition also shows photographs of the series Smokes and Mirrors that was made in South Africa. The streets of Johannesburg are lined with posters of tabloid newspapers and their sensationalist headlines. All present they are part of everyday cityscape. In bloodthirsty headlines they mark the remaining social and racial apartheid within the South African society. In this series the posters were made into costumes and clothing. In the tradition of “tableaux vivantes” the actors from After Gertrude Stein pose in the deserted inner-city goldmines. Smokes and Mirrors refers to John Heartfield’s photomontage, Those who read bourgeois newspapers will become blind and deaf. Away with these blinders!