THE PARENTS’ BEDROOM SHOW is a project by Elisabeth von Samsonow and Juergen Teller, curated by Christian Bauer, artistic director of the State Gallery of Lower Austria. It deals with the architecture of time involved in the practice of the performing art.
The exhibition is presented by Zuecca Projects and the PhotoPhore.
The show is based on a public performance realized by Samsonow in Munich, that deals with the tension between the public and the intimate. Elisabeth von Samsonow‘s performance “The Parents’ Bedroom Show” in Maximiliansstrasse, Munich, stresses the codes of intimacy connected to the bedroom furniture. The parents’ bedroom appears as a hot spot of crossing histories/biographies, as the parents’ bedsheets are tinted by individual memories, as well as political and historical ones.
In theirs beds, the singularity of their desires is hotwired with the political gestures of their time. This is the point that organizes the interface of performance and photography as forms of investigation, under the auspice of “infantile” (pre-Oedipal) curiosity (“the will to knowledge”).
As the performance is a time-based event cutting the edge of time and projecting it into a non-ritual space of density and meaningfulness, photography produces singularities of an absolute past that becomes perennial.
Juergen Teller in this project is not a photographer archiving the performance, but a partner in crime employing chronomanipulations as the means to invert time or the life-deathvector.
THE PARENTS’ BEDROOM SHOW: The live performance in Venice
THE PSYCHOPOLITICAL SOUVENIR SHOP
Live performance: 08.05.2019, h. 06.00 pm
Elisabeth von Samsonow (action), Ida-Marie Corell (sound) and Ebadur Rahman (camera).
In cooperation with THE DISSIDENT GODDESSES’ NETWORK / Contemporary Prehistories, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.
The performance for the opening of “The Parents’ Bedroom Show” deals with the affective-commercial dimensions of everyday-life things and artifacts (such as tiny goddesses’ statues, copies of the Venus of Willendorf).
The Parents’ Bedroom Show, still from the movie filmed during the performance in Munich, Lauren Klocker (camera), Elisabeth von Samsonow and Lauren Klocker (post-production), Courtesy of the artists
Laying out decks of these objects and reading their meaningfulness like through an ikebana liturgy, the performer proceeds interacting with the public to which these objects are explained, offered or sold. The action alternates moments of presentation, explanation, interrogation and destruction. The things are designed to tie together history, memory, affection, as a play of gain and loss.
The performer (Elisabeth von Samsonow) is densely decorated with different stuff, giving her the appearance of a slow-motion souvenir shop – or an archaeological archive. Things and words merge and mismatch, pointing out fate and freedom in the process of (de)archiving.
The performance starts in the exhibition room of THE PARENTS’ BEDROOM SHOW at Spazio Ridotto, from where it moves in an improvised manner slowly to and through public space, taking a little swarm of audience with it.
THE PARENTS’ BEDROOM SHOW: Exhibition catalogue
A catalogue is published on the occasion of the show Elisabeth von Samsonow/Juergen Teller The Parents’ Bedroom Show/Creating Time, Verlag für moderne Kunst, Vienna. With contributions by Christian Bauer, curator of the exhibition, Felicitas Thun- Hohenstein, curator of the Austrian National Pavilion at the Biennale of Venice 2019, Nina Tabassomi, curator and artistic and managing director of the TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol, Domenico Fallacara, curator and co-founder of the PhotoPhore, and an interview between Elisabeth von Samsonow and Juergen Teller.
The catalogue is published for the State Gallery of Lower Austria as a joint venture with Zuecca Projects and the PhotoPhore, Venice.
THE PARENTS’ BEDROOM SHOW
Elisabeth von Samsonow & Juergen Teller
09.05 – 31.07.2019
10.00 am – 06.00pm
Opening and Performance
08.05.2019
06.00 pm
Spazio Ridotto
Calle del Ridotto 1388
San Marco
30124 Venice
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Presented by Zuecca Projects and the PhotoPhore
Curated by Christian Bauer, artistic director of the State Gallery of Lower Austria
Under the auspices of the Governor of Lower Austria, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, and the German Ambassador to Austria H.E. Dr. Johannes Haindl
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Discover: www.samsonow.net | www.zueccaprojects.org
Press kit: drive.google.com
