Opening Friday 2nd of March: "What happened to God?" / Halle 14, Leipzig

Julia Benkert, Peter Beste, Marc Bijl, BORIS+NATASCHA, Chan Sook Choi, Boris Eldagsen, GODzilla-Productions, Christian Jankowski, Helmut & Johanna Kandl, Cristina Lucas, Rory Macbeth, Txema Novelo, Nii Obodai, Dan Perjovschi, Per Teljer

March 3 - April 1

HALLE 14
Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei
Spinnereistr. 7
04179 Leipzig
www.halle14.org
 
Tue-Fri 11-18 Uhr

WATCH MY VIDEO (THE SHOW MUST GO ON) HERE

Eldagsens' work explores metaphysical to erotic aspects of a timeless human phenomenon - the urge to lose oneself. In referring to this phenomenon as either Mysticism (religion), Transpersonality (psychology), Desire to Escape (Aldous Huxley) or Transgression and Unproductive Consumption of the Surplus (Georges Bataille), there has always been a redemptive mode to being human. This redemption can come in a positive or negative form, upward or downward - as we can all disappear into something larger or smaller: religiony drugs, mass events, love, sex, extreme sports, hypnosis etc.

The series how to disappear completely explores this human phenomenon in two different ways, POEMS and SCHOOLS.

The above are excerpts from THE POEMS.

What you see is staged and non-staged photography, influenced by Eldagsen's ongoing research on the topic. They stand for themselves like poems. Light is not only used as the basic means of photography but as a central symbolic subject.

Also check out the posts on VIDEO POEMS and THE SCHOOLS.

More information and works on www.eldagsen.com.

Eldagsens' work explores metaphysical to erotic aspects of a timeless human phenomenon - the urge to lose oneself. 

The series how to disappear completely explores this human phenomenon in two different ways, POEMS and SCHOOLS.

The above is an excerpt from THE POEMS.

Whereas most of the POEMS are photography, some have the form of short videos - staged photography expanded in time.

More information on www.eldagsen.com.

THE SCHOOL OF HOPE (the show must go on)

1-Channel Video installation, 4:3 PAL DVD, 12 mins loop, sound

(the show must go on) combines the visuals of a Rembrandt-like crucifixion scene with the atmospheric sound of a live-to-air boxing fight to produce a provoking and contemporary video-work about religion, media and hope. The crucifixion is divided into three rounds and two breaks. The audience is a multi-lingual cacophony of German, Russian and Turkish. We hear the voice of a British commentator, reporting the event. Using typical boxing terms, he describes the fight of 'The Contender' for TV broadcast. During the fight, the situation develops into a nightmare for both 'The Contender' and 'The Commentator'. But the show must go on.

CAST

André Scioblowski

VOICE

Steve Ellery

SHOWS

Margaret Lawrence Galleries Melbourne (Australia) and Cologne OFF International Video Art Festival (Germany)

REVIEWS

Lightweight challenger Duk Koo Kim lasted 14 rounds against Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas in 1982. The fight was stopped in the 15^th round, but it was too late for the twenty-three year old who died after lapsing into a coma. If you Google Duk Koo Kim you can find photographs of the Korean boxer lying flat on the tarpaulin at the end of the 14^th round. There are hundreds of spectators in the crowd surrounding the ring, but not all of them appear to be cheering. Boris Eldagsen works with this tension and opposition in The Show Must Go On. His Jesus Christ is transformed from religious icon, wall-mounted crucifix or shiny pendant bobbing between cleavage, to the face of a young man in agony, fighting the good fight. Yeah, I can laugh at the construct, the commentary, the ringing of the bell at the end of each round, but momentarily this gives way to something else transcending bloodlust or schadenfreude. I think its called empathy.

Bec Dean, Curator, Performance Space Sydney

If you do one thing - go and watch Boxing Jesus. Religious art reinvented as a boxing hall of fame. The Age, Australia

This exhibition is a knockout.

Gus Mercurio, Actor, TV Announcer and President of the Australian National Boxing Federation

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Eldagsen's work explores metaphysical to erotic aspects of a timeless human phenomenon - the urge to lose oneself. The series how to disappear completely explores this human phenomenon in two different ways. POEMS and SCHOOLS.

THE SCHOOLS are video-installations and objects that explore one of the many ways to lose yourself.

For more information about THE SCHOOLS or THE POEMS see posts below or visit www.eldagsen.com.

THE SCHOOL OF TIME (no cure)

4-Channel Video installation, 4:3 PAL DVD, 14:15 min loop, sound

Based on the structure of karaoke, this video installation features four 80-year-old Germans, singing the lyrics of three The Cure songs: Cold, One Hundred Years and Sinking. The haunting electronic score composed by Melbourne composer David Chisholm uses leitmotifs of Richard Wagner's opera Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) to accompany the lyrics. The work drifts into a poetic and eerie comment on the transience of life and memory.

CAST

Dorothea Jaster, Johanna Penski, Anton Sorge, Hans Baldin

SHOWS

'New German Photomedia' /  Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney (Australia), Athens Video Art Festival (Greece) and 'Expanded Cinema /  Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow (Russia).

REVIEWS

This haunting, immersive work creates an environment that is both poignantly introspective and breathtakingly spectatcular. Here, dwarfed by the encircling faces of old age, the viewer is left to contemplate the transience of life and memory, and the slow fade into eternal stillness.                  Alasdair Foster, Director / Australian Centre for Photography Sydney

Boris Eldagsen's vast, weather-beaten visages bear down on the viewer from all four sides. Projected on giant screens, the faces whisper baleful phrases as ominous music sounds. Confronting and bleak, the haunting faces stay with you. Festival highlight.

Sydney Morning Herald

In the darkened main gallery, you find yourself surrounded by the four huge screens of Boris Eldagsen's (No Cure) on which are projected four elderly figures in white hospital gowns, their deeply etched physiognomies tinged with a blue that might be bleeding from a medical scanner. These giants speak in turn, sadly, anxiously, even angrily, as if to you, or across the space to each other, their German recital of bleak song lyrics from The Cure subtitled in English on the opposite screen and counterpointed with Australian composer David Chisholm's subterranean murmuring of Siegfried's funeral march. This stillness of the subjects makes this work portraiture, their movements and utterances make it drama. The heightened detail in the imagery and their mutual, unearthly, transforming radiance conjures other states of being that take us into and beyond ourselves. It's quite an experience.

realtime Magazine

Bathing the viewer in bright, white light, Boris Eldagsen's large-scale, four channel video and sound installation is a poetic and haunting meditation on the transience of life and memory that is as confronting as it is serene.

artdaily.org

Our 'Artist of the Week'!

FBI Radio Sydney

From the bright white light that baths the viewer to lyrics lifted from a swag of Cure songs, Boris Eldagsen's large-scale, four channel video and sound installation is an interesting, if tough and haunting piece. The imagery features four 80-year-olds singing, in thick German accents, said Cure lyrics over an original score created by Melbourne composer David Chisholm who cites Richard Wagner's opera Götterdämmerung as inspiration for the piece. 

kripy.com

Die Gesichter sind vom Leben gezeichnet. Vier alte Menschen tragen Hemden, die an Krankenhaus erinnern. Extremes weißes Licht lässt ihre Haut bläulich-lila erscheinen. (No Cure) (keine Heilung) ist der Titel der Videoinstallation, die jetzt in Sydney im Australian Centre for Photography eröffnet wurde. Unwirkliche Szenarien wie in (No Cure) sind für Eldagsen typisch. In seinen Videos und Fotos geht er dabei auch oft an Grenzen, reißt den Betrachter aus den normalen Sehgewohnheiten heraus, und das nicht immer zimperlich. Harte Schockeffekte finden sich aber nur selten in seinen Arbeiten. Die Kombination macht es und vor allem das, was der Betrachter nicht sieht, ist bei Eldagsen wichtig: Bei (No Cure) bleibt unklar, wo die alten Menschen aufgenommen wurden, wer sie sind, wie es ihnen konkret geht. Die Filmsequenzen sind mit von Richard Wagner inspirierter Musik untermalt. Die Menschen sprechen Texte der britischen Wavepopband The Cure. Mehrere Schichten werden so übereinander gelagert. Die Geschichte baut sich im Kopf des vielleicht auch verstörten Betrachters auf. In den meisten Arbeiten Eldagsens wird vieles buchstäblich im Dunkeln gelassen. Licht, Schatten, Farbe und Bildausschnitt komponiert er dabei so eindringlich, dass es den Betrachter packen muss, auch wenn er das Zu-Sehende sparsam dosiert.

Die Rheinpfalz

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Eldagsen's work explores metaphysical to erotic aspects of a timeless human phenomenon - the urge to lose oneself. The series how to disappear completely explores this human phenomenon in two different ways. POEMS and SCHOOLS.

THE SCHOOLS are video-installations and objects that explore one of the many ways to lose yourself.

For more information about THE SCHOOLS or THE POEMS see posts below or visit www.eldagsen.com.

THE SCHOOL OF MAGIC (the promise)

1-Channel Video installation, 16:9 HD BluRay, 8:18 mins loop, silent

A woman is standing, waiting, her right hand held up, expecting something to come from above. She shows signs of exhaustion, her eyes water and her hand shakes slightly. On her left shoulder sits a mysterious bird. When her hand reaches towards the bird, it flies away. She goes back into her waiting position, hoping for something to arrive. Nothing happens. Her hand reaches back a second time, touching her empty shoulder. When she returns to wait, the bird appears out of the blue, sitting on her left shoulder as if it had never disappeared.

CAST 

Sandra Hüller

BIRD WRANGLER

Martin Eder

SHOWS

Galerie Herrmann & Wagner / Berlin (Germany), Urban Screens 08 / Melbourne (Australia), Centre for Contemporary Photography / Melbourne (Australia), ACC Weimar (Germany)

REVIEWS

The Promise questions what we think we know about expectation and salvation. This silent video work is a one-woman-show for renowned German actress Sandra Hüller.

Karra Rees, Curator, Centre for Contemporary Photography Melbourne

Ein Ereignis ist sie, immer wieder aufs Neue, in jeder Rolle, die sie mit ähnlicher Intensität aufzugreifen versteht wie in 'Requiem' als unbedarftes, fromm erzogenes Mädchen, das vermeintlich vom Satan beherrscht wird. Oder als überforderte Mutter in 'Madonnen'. Sandra Hüllers Schauspiel ist große Kunst, weil es so wirklichkeitsnah, so durchdringend sein kann. Erst recht, wenn es von Videokünstler Boris Eldagsen tatsächlich zur Verschmelzung von Kunst und Theater kommt. Hier agiert Hüller ohne Worte im mystischen Nichts.

PRINZ Berlin

Vorwiegend Nachtaufnahmen, Menschen die oft nach oben schauen und alleine unterwegs sind. Doch der Blick wird nie wirklich eingelöst. Mystisch und metaphysisch. Auf den Spuren des 'Geheimnisses an sich'. Der Künstler Boris Eldagsen nähert sich mit Installation, Fotografie und Video dem Verborgenen.

Tatort Kultur / ZDF Aspekte

In fantastische Traumwelten und ganz weit hinaus ins Universum. Videoinstallationen und Fotoserien am Rande der Realität.

RBB Inforadio Kultur

Bewegend, weil nahezu unbewegt: Boris Eldagsens Videoarbeit 'THE SCHOOL OF MAGIC (The Promise)'. Anfangs geht der Betrachter von einer Fotografie aus, bis er vielleicht ein Zwinkern und dann ausnehmend langsame Bewegungen bemerkt. Schauspielerin Sandra Hüller steht regungslos und nackt vor einem roten Vorhang, blickt ins Licht, mit bittender Gebärde. Gerade die Langsamkeit der Bewegung macht das Betrachten so intensiv. Von den Bildern geht eine unheimliche suggestive Kraft aus, die die Szene nahezu real erscheinen lässt. Ein Sich-Verlieren im Moment.

Frederik Beyer, hpd

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Eldagsen's work explores metaphysical to erotic aspects of a timeless human phenomenon - the urge to lose oneself. The series how to disappear completely explores this human phenomenon in two different ways. POEMS and SCHOOLS.

THE SCHOOLS are video-installations and objects that explore one of the many ways to lose yourself.

For more information about THE SCHOOLS or THE POEMS see posts below or visit www.eldagsen.com.

THE SCHOOL OF TEARS (weeping song)

3-Channel Video installation, 4:3 PAL DVD, 13 mins loop, sound

There is a room with three screens. On each screen, a girl sits in a corner. Only a spotlight illuminates them. Each girl wears a white nightdress and weeps in her own unique way. One looks directly into the camera, another keeps her eyes on the ground. Although recorded separately, there appears to be a mysterious choreography between them. Weeping, they create a song beyond words and boundaries.

CAST

Michele Stieber, Helen Schröder, Esther Becker

SHOWS

Optica Festival, Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto / Gijón (Spain) and Filmoteca de Andalucia / Córdoba (Spain), Contemporary Art Museum / Casoria (Italy)

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Eldagsen's work explores metaphysical to erotic aspects of a timeless human phenomenon - the urge to lose oneself. The series how to disappear completely explores this human phenomenon in two different ways. POEMS and SCHOOLS.

THE SCHOOLS are video-installations and objects that explore one of the many ways to lose yourself.

For more information about THE SCHOOLS or THE POEMS see posts below or visit www.eldagsen.com.