JAVIER TÉLLEZ – ROTATIONS
2012-01-09Rotations (Prometheus and Zwitter) (2011), a new film installation produced after a year-long DAAD residency in Berlin, focuses on the history of the psychiatric institution and its relation to historical events of the 20th century in the German context. The main protagonists of Téllez ‘ new films are two sculptures. One is Prometheus (1937) by Arno Breker, a monumental male figure that represents the mythological hero grasping a torch.
The other figure is Weib und Mann oder Adam und Eva, also known as “Zwitter” (1920) by Karl Genzel, a small wooden figure depicting an hermaphrodite that holds a clock in its hand. Rotations (Prometheus and Zwitter) is an installation composed of two 35 mm silent films projections, showing these sculptures rotating at the same speed in different directions. The sculptures’ endless rotation is echoed in the installation by the film passing through the projectors in a loop, referring to the cinematic apparatus and its obsolescence as to the theme of repetition and difference in history. The films show the morphological similarities of the sculptures focusing in extreme details that display their materiality, but it is through the very disparity between the figures that meaning is articulated.
Exhibition runs through to February 25th, 2012
Galerie Peter Kilchmann
Zahnradstrasse 21
CH-8005 Zurich
Switzerland
