9-channel film installation
Asylum, 2001/2002
colour, sound
shot on Super 16mm
converted to PAL SD
aspect ratio 16:9
51 min 58 sec loop
Written, directed and produced by Julian Rosefeldt
In a film installation on nine screens, Asylum (2001/2002), Julian
Rosefeldt creates a theatrically stylized and visually rich environment to
examine and deconstruct stereotypes associated with immigrants and the very idea
of the Other. According to the number of channels, the work deals with nine
different ethnic groups or nationalities, including Chinese, Vietnamese,
Turkish, Kosovan-Albanian and Afghan. A hundred and twenty ‘performers’,
many of whom are immigrants living in asylum seekers’ hostels, literally ‘act
out’ their existence as foreigners by repeatedly executing typical,
cliché-ridden jobs in exuberant settings: women with head scarves vacuum-clean
a cactus garden; Asian cooks sit in a monkey house, tearing up the
Styrofoam packaging of takeaway food; a pile of newspapers that has been
stacked and restacked by paperboys is whirled through the air by a giant
turbine. The hypnotically slow motion of the camera, its pendulum-like movement
within the picture frame, emphasises the ritualistic and nonsensical aspect of
the tasks being performed: its profoundly Sisyphean quality. Always portrayed
as homogeneous groups, the performers are stripped of their individuality, thus
depicting the way in which people tend to look generically at ‘the other’.
The installation questions the ‚correct aesthetic‘ in the world of modern
art (as an analogy to the concept of ‚political correctness‘), where an almost
journalistic approach is usually the only way to deal with current political
issues and social taboo.
Curated by Agnieszka Pindera
Coratorial tours:
27th July at 7 p.m.
21st August at 1 p.m.
Opening 25 July at 7 p.m.
The exhibition is open every day
till 26 August 2016, 12–8 p.m.
Admission free