Schlaflied (2011)

Schlaflied (screenshot)

Schlaflied

dig. 720p HD-Video, 3:54min.
Berlin, 2011

Schlaflied is a German lullaby sung to children at bed time.
Projecting a diapositive on the backyard walls of Berlin-Wedding, the most war ravaged area of Berlin in World War II, the slide shows a cemetery of soldiers in France. Halter through this performative action explores a futility. A futility in the loss of life. The futilities of war.


A Wake: Still Lives and Moving Images” at Momentum (Bethanien), Berlin

Death, and its accompanying rituals, are celebrated and explored in the exhibition “A Wake: Still Lives and Moving Images.” As a platform dedicated to interrogating time-based art, “A Wake,” examines what happens when time runs out, through the veil, and into the hereafter.

It is an emergence into consciousness, as well as a consequence or a result. Taking this transitional point between being and representation, “A Wake” incorporates video, digital media, photography and film to create a space where media itself becomes the veil through which we pass--the translucent surface between observer and observed.

Curators Rachel Rits-Volloch, Leo Kuelbs and Adam Nankervis have selected works woven with the contemporary and contemporaneous dialogues of international artists. In Berlin the works were presented as a processional of screens throughout the gallery--Momentum Berlin.

Artists Include:
AES+F, Osvaldo Budet, Annika Eriksson, Yishay Garbasz and Nikola Lutz, Anna Bella Geiger, Stephan Halter, Jarick Jongman, Betty Leirner, David Medalla, Tracey Moffatt, Fiona Pardington, Polynoid, Paul Rascheja, Alain Resnais, Jan Svankmajer



More On “A Wake,” “Day of the Dead,” and Bethanien House:

All cultures acknowledge the Day of the Dead. Some celebrate, others mourn, but the ineluctable culmination of life is a part of every belief system and of every personal journey. Opening the weekend of All Saints Day, Los Dios des Muetrtes (The Day of the Dead), A Wake will be held in a once-upon-a-time infirmary within the former cloisters of Bethanien House Berlin.

Originally built as a hospital--a space both battling and housing death--Bethanien has since been transformed into a place where the processes of art and creation manifest the victory of life over death. We fill this space with a labyrinth of screens, illuminating still lives and moving images. A Wake is a passage through time, a processional, which is our "offerenda,” an offering to visiting souls awakened on this day, every year.



deutsch:

A Wake: Still Lives and Moving Images

Der Tod und seine begleitenden Rituale werden in der kommenden Ausstellung in Momentums „A Wake: Still Lives and Moving Images“ gefeiert und erkundet.
Als Plattform, die sich der hinterfragenden, zeitbasierten Kunst annimmt, untersucht „A Wake“, was geschieht, wenn die Zeit knapp wird - durch den Schleier, ins Jenseits.

Es ist ein Aufbruch zur Besinnung ebenso wie eine Folgerung oder ein Ergebnis.
Diesen Standpunkt des Übergangs zwischen Sein und Darstellung einnehmend, vereinigt „A Wake“ Video, digitale Medien, Fotografie und Film, um einen Raum zu schaffen, in dem das Medium selbst der Schleier wird, den wir durchschreiten – die durchscheinende Oberfläche zwischen Betrachter und Betrachtetem.

Die Kuratoren Rachel Rits-Volloch, Leo Kuelbs und Adam Nankervis haben Arbeiten ausgewählt, die im zeitgenössischen und gleichzeitig stattfindenden Dialog internationaler Künstler eingewoben sind. Die Arbeiten werden als Prozession von Bildschirmen durch die Galerie Momentum Berlin präsentiert.



A Wake: Still Lives and Moving Images”

October 30th through November 13th, 2011
Thursday – Sunday: 13:00-19:00

Momentum Berlin
Kunstquartier Bethanien 134
Mariannenplatz 2
Kreuzberg
10997 Berlin 
Germany