GALERIE METRO

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June 30th - August 5th 2007 | Opening June 29th 2007, 7 pm

In this exhibition, the artist explores the metaphysical and anthropological dimensions of film. Through the use of quotes, settings, and props, he constructs a ‘film space’ endlessly multiplying each component through a complex system of references.

Which traditions of narration and imagery have been inserted into the language of film after creating this means of expression in the first place? Which strategies of mediation and possibilities of experience have been lost during that process? What happened at critical turning points such as the invention of writing, film, and digitization? How has this influenced the interpretation of the world? Yet, along the way, the artist encounters certain anthropological patterns that, despite of the loss caused by the changes, are able to again humanize these new media.

The work Untitled (Monolith) represents the absolute projection screen while signifying the unexplainable and impenetrable. In the script for Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001,” the monolith is described as that black that all light is absorbed and nothing is reflected on its surface. At the same time, it references the black box, the space that eliminates any light that could interfere with the projection, as well as the white cube, the exhibition space that eradicates every form and colour that might influence the experience of art.

In contrast to creating the absolute projection space, RGB/4:3, comprised of three large-scale monochrome paintings in red, green, and blue, analyses the digital ‘matter’ establishing the space of colour. Thus, the artist questions the seemingly complete dissolving of reality or its translation into the digital space. A reversal of this translation demonstrates the blurred borders between the digital and the analogue world, as the digital world largely influences the reception of reality. Opening the show, The (Famous) Bosse Sudenburg Rehearsal presents the outfit the artist was wearing during the inaugural gallery opening neatly installed on a bench. Rehearsing his own role as an artist, he puts on his gear getting ready to enter the tournament fighting for acknowledgement and success.

In Ten Years We Will Laugh About That is a cynical comment on the effect of film on our perception of time. Through editing, nearby rooms can be presented as equally far from each other as years or even centuries. With time and space becoming virtual realities, one’s sensibility for the moment is easily lost.

Dove represents a somewhat naïve self-portrait of the artist stylized as a Christian icon and placed in a precious shrine. However, this is not to be understood as narcisistic self-adoration but rather as isolation or even captivation in the metaphysical and undefined space of art.

Bosse Sudenburg was born in 1975 in Magdeburg, Germany. He lives and works in Berlin. The Tournament Show is part of his post-MFA studies/exams (Meisterschüler) with Heinz Emigholz (Universität der Künste Berlin). The artist received grants from DAAD and NICA for a residency at Hunter College in New York where his work was shown in the 2005 MFA show. In 2006, he had a solo-exhibition at NewYorkRioTokyo in Berlin. Sudenburg’s films and videos were presented at the following festivals: Insurrection International, Chicago (2007); Rencontres Internationales, Paris (2006); Cinema Abstracta, Rom (2006); EmergeAndSee, Berlin (2006). Concurrently with this gallery exhibition at Metro, his work will be included in the 13th Rencontres Internationales in Berlin as well as in the graduation show at UdK Berlin.