Holly Zausner- UNSEEN




Holly Zausner, 2007


 

Bode Museum, Berlin: April 25 – May 13, 2007

Wohnmaschine April 27 – June 16, 2007

 

 

Holly Zausner will be the first contemporary artist to exhibit work inside the Bode Museum, Berlin. Her exhibition "unseen" is a film project which will open April 24, 2007 and will be shown continuously for four weeks. There will be a parallel exhibition of her photography connected to the film project at Galerie Wohnmaschine opening April 26, 2007.

 

The film is 15 minutes long and was filmed in super 16 mm. It will be shown in the Florentine Basilica on a 7 1/2 meter screen with surround sound.

 

For the opening of the Bode Museum exhibition there will be a live skywriting performance above the museum, a plane will write "unseen" above the museum.

 

 

"Unseen" is the third part of a film trilogy, the last film "Second Breath" was shown at the Neue Nationalgalerie in 2005 and was acquired for their collection. Holly Zausner works with ideas that transverse sculpture, performance, film and photography. In her new film "unseen" she continues to explore ideas about history both personal and cultural. The film uses a non-linear idea of narration and different speeds to create ideas about time. The main characters in the film are the artist and sculptures of a male and female figure, which she has made specifically for this film.

 

The story of the film is that strange, unexplainable things are happening in Berlin and the city has become completely deserted. The artist walks past her gallery and it explodes, she is threatened by two tigers inside the sculpture garden of the Neue Nationalgalerie and a plane is writing a word in the sky, there are strange male and female sculptures which she interacts with. Major locations in Berlin are completely devoid of people and activitiy, Hauptbahnhof, Strasse des 17. Juni, Unter den Linden, Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse, factories, etc. The main character, the artist, wanders through the city searching for answers. She enters a collapsed amusement park from the former East, an experimental living place from the 1960's, a deserted control room of an old power company.

 

There are also images of the lively city, but one is not sure if they are just flashbacks. In one of the final scenes, she enters a deserted Bode Museum and it is there where she has a meaningful experience.

 

"Unseen" is about contemporary alienation and the meaning of art. It is about the struggle for meaning and making the unseen seen.

 

There will be a catalog with an essay by Gregor Stemmrich.