REVIEW ON FELIX GMELIN
Another video piece, a double-projection, bears the telling title "Two Films Exchanging Soundtracks" 2003. Here Gmelin make use of other appropriated films, one from 1967 about how drugs can be spiritually liberating, and the other film from 1974 is a didactic documentary on Chinese schoolchildren hailing the republic they live in. The films are projected largely on opposite walls, and the soundtracks and subtitles have been exchanged, creating a lapse in both time and meaning. The narratives extracted and then again put together in the projections, are reflecting each other and become totally entangling. Sweet utopia can look very different depending on what time zone you’re in, and perhaps also depending on what drug your on; Cannabis Sativa or a political fairytale. The exhibition consists of more material, but the keynote is however the film once made by Gmelin’s father. Any Freudian could wallow in the material, but what is lingering after visiting the exhibition is somehow a most dignified and still sweet feeling of a sincere homage, but perhaps with a just a dash of indulgence.
Power Ekroth