Klaus W. Eisenlohr
2018-11-29 12:10:39 UTC
Directors Lounge Screening
Gabriele Stellbaum
My House Is On Fire
Thursday, 29 November 2018
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte
Gabriele Stellbaum creates art films that are
performance and story-based at the same time. It
is the second time, the artist presents her work
at Directors Lounge. Coming from sculpture, she
turned to light projections and time-based
multi-channel slide projects and finally to
video. The program presents a number of very new
and more recent works that she created in Berlin.
She calls her work "poetic film art" and one
could add: "...with a twist". Stellbaum often
works with a single, or only a few characters on
simple settings, mostly in locations in Berlin or
in her studio. However, what starts like a story
of a narrative short film, does not progress the
usual way. The poetry of the scenes and the
dialogues (sometimes a monologue) is rough,
sometimes disturbing, and reminds of Beckett and
Brecht. The dramatic conflict of the pieces, at
the same time, remains unresolved, and the
missing culmination point creates a rather flat
open-ended dramaturgy. The artist tells me about
a breathing technique, which Beckett required
from the actors in some of his plays: They were
asked to articulate his rather long sentences in
one breath, bringing the actors almost to
exhaustion or fading. Stellbaum characters often
seem to suffer from a similar breathlessness
caused by circumstances beyond their control,
circumstances as groundless as the accusations of
Kafka's judges at the castle.
In "Heretofore" (2017) the artist appears as main
protagonist in her video, like in other pieces. A
short glimpse, a slightly wider shot, shows, what
the reverb of the sound already has revealed: she
stands in a small box behind a window and that
frames her upper body incorporating (however not
fully convincingly) the kind of political speaker
we would expect for candidates for judges or
senate. The box is decorated with a wallpaper of
five-edged stars. She, the performer, does not
try to immerse the viewer into a Hollywood
realism. It is the language, however, that
creates the illusion of real speech.
"Undoing the Linear" (2017) is quite different in
comparison with most of Stellbaum's more recent
work. The setting may remind of a late Beckett
piece. Located in an old Berlin ballroom, the
field of view of the camera has been marked with
tape as a virtual rectangle on screen, and the
performer strictly moves only along the marks, or
inside the marked space. However, it quickly
becomes clear that the action, or performance,
does not lead into the heavy existential
narrative of a Beckett play. Instead, it is
centered on the sound. The performance becomes a
duet between the artist and the piano.
A more typical Stellbaum piece is Close Huddle"
(2017). An empty Berlin pre-World War II tenement
with worn, old-fashioned wall paper but with
freshly painted double-winged windows is the
background for a kind of chamber theatre piece
with two women wearing the same non-specific
beige dress. The two women converse within and
about an internal shared space that they seem to
have created for themselves, without being
friends. The dialogue lingers on reflections
about closeness and sharing, without creating a
warm or more friendly feeling between each other.
Close Huddle is unsettling without drama or
obvious reason. The two women seem to reasonably
discuss grounds for becoming connected with each
other or the outside, but the discourse disperses
into individual anxiety.
Stellbaum's films are sometimes funny in a wicked
way, and sometimes subversively unsettling. She
mostly leaves it open to the viewer to find
direct references to society or politics. It will
be an intense night to view and to discuss the
films. As usually she will be present for Q&A.
Artist Link
https://stellbaum.net/
Links:
Directors Lounge http://www.directorslounge.net
Richfilm http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/
Z-Bar http://www.z-bar.de
--
Klaus W. Eisenlohr, Osnabrücker Str. 25, D-10589 Berlin, Germany
email: ***@richfilm.de
and film production: http://www.richfilm.de
phone: int.- 49 - 30 - 3409 5343 (BERLIN)
Gabriele Stellbaum
My House Is On Fire
Thursday, 29 November 2018
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte
Gabriele Stellbaum creates art films that are
performance and story-based at the same time. It
is the second time, the artist presents her work
at Directors Lounge. Coming from sculpture, she
turned to light projections and time-based
multi-channel slide projects and finally to
video. The program presents a number of very new
and more recent works that she created in Berlin.
She calls her work "poetic film art" and one
could add: "...with a twist". Stellbaum often
works with a single, or only a few characters on
simple settings, mostly in locations in Berlin or
in her studio. However, what starts like a story
of a narrative short film, does not progress the
usual way. The poetry of the scenes and the
dialogues (sometimes a monologue) is rough,
sometimes disturbing, and reminds of Beckett and
Brecht. The dramatic conflict of the pieces, at
the same time, remains unresolved, and the
missing culmination point creates a rather flat
open-ended dramaturgy. The artist tells me about
a breathing technique, which Beckett required
from the actors in some of his plays: They were
asked to articulate his rather long sentences in
one breath, bringing the actors almost to
exhaustion or fading. Stellbaum characters often
seem to suffer from a similar breathlessness
caused by circumstances beyond their control,
circumstances as groundless as the accusations of
Kafka's judges at the castle.
In "Heretofore" (2017) the artist appears as main
protagonist in her video, like in other pieces. A
short glimpse, a slightly wider shot, shows, what
the reverb of the sound already has revealed: she
stands in a small box behind a window and that
frames her upper body incorporating (however not
fully convincingly) the kind of political speaker
we would expect for candidates for judges or
senate. The box is decorated with a wallpaper of
five-edged stars. She, the performer, does not
try to immerse the viewer into a Hollywood
realism. It is the language, however, that
creates the illusion of real speech.
"Undoing the Linear" (2017) is quite different in
comparison with most of Stellbaum's more recent
work. The setting may remind of a late Beckett
piece. Located in an old Berlin ballroom, the
field of view of the camera has been marked with
tape as a virtual rectangle on screen, and the
performer strictly moves only along the marks, or
inside the marked space. However, it quickly
becomes clear that the action, or performance,
does not lead into the heavy existential
narrative of a Beckett play. Instead, it is
centered on the sound. The performance becomes a
duet between the artist and the piano.
A more typical Stellbaum piece is Close Huddle"
(2017). An empty Berlin pre-World War II tenement
with worn, old-fashioned wall paper but with
freshly painted double-winged windows is the
background for a kind of chamber theatre piece
with two women wearing the same non-specific
beige dress. The two women converse within and
about an internal shared space that they seem to
have created for themselves, without being
friends. The dialogue lingers on reflections
about closeness and sharing, without creating a
warm or more friendly feeling between each other.
Close Huddle is unsettling without drama or
obvious reason. The two women seem to reasonably
discuss grounds for becoming connected with each
other or the outside, but the discourse disperses
into individual anxiety.
Stellbaum's films are sometimes funny in a wicked
way, and sometimes subversively unsettling. She
mostly leaves it open to the viewer to find
direct references to society or politics. It will
be an intense night to view and to discuss the
films. As usually she will be present for Q&A.
Artist Link
https://stellbaum.net/
Links:
Directors Lounge http://www.directorslounge.net
Richfilm http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/
Z-Bar http://www.z-bar.de
--
Klaus W. Eisenlohr, Osnabrücker Str. 25, D-10589 Berlin, Germany
email: ***@richfilm.de
and film production: http://www.richfilm.de
phone: int.- 49 - 30 - 3409 5343 (BERLIN)