The Austrian-French artist Gisèle Vienne is perhaps one of the most unconventional directors and choreographers in Europe. With powerful images and subtle soundtracks, her works often penetrate deep into the subconscious and impressively dissect interpersonal relationships, violence and trauma. As part of a collaboration with Haus am Waldsee and the Georg-Kolbe-Museum, she is now bringing two of her most iconic works of recent years to Sophiensæle: For Berlin Art Week with a screening of the film Jerk at 2 pm and a subsequent artist talk at 3:30 pm on September 15, 2024. And from November 14 to 16, 2024 with three performances of the stage work Crowd.
Image above: Jerk (2021); Design: © DACM / Gisèle Vienne; Bild: © Compagnie des Indes; Performer auf dem Bild: Jonathan Capdevielle
Gisèle Vienne’s film Jerk (F, 2021) is based on her 2008 cult solo play Jerk, which toured internationally for twelve years. The film is set in Texas in the 1970s and is based on the story by Dennis Cooper, which is inspired by real events. Serial killer Dean Corll kills more than 20 boys while making ultra-violent snuff films with the help of two teenagers. During his life imprisonment, he becomes a puppeteer and devises a show in prison. Using the means of genre and horror film, Jerk takes the profound experience of the mechanisms of violence to the extreme: a reduced film on questions of power relations, incarnation and the disembodiment of bodies.
The performance work Crowd (2017) will be shown on November 14/15/16, 2024 at 8 pm in the Sophiensæle ballroom. For Crowd, 15 bodies full of concentrated energy move in virtuoso slow motion to a playlist by musician Peter Rehberg, featuring classics of rave culture such as Underground Resistance and its electronic precursors such as Manuel Göttsching. Crowd tells the stories of countercultures, of creative, intellectual and political places where people try to invent other ways of being. A complex web of emotions, longings and tensions develops in the microcosm of a raving group in search of community: an emotional state of emergency.
Gisèle Vienne is a French-Austrian artist, choreographer, theater and film director. She has been trained in the visual arts since childhood by her mother, Dorothéa Vienne-Pollak. She studied dance and music, philosophy and puppetry. Over the past twenty years, her work has toured Europe, Asia and America, including the productions Showroomdummies (2001/2009/2013/2020), I Apologize (2004), Kindertotenlieder (2007), Jerk (2008), This Is How You Will Disappear (2010), LAST SPRING: A Prequel (2011), The Ventriloquists Convention (2015) in collaboration with Puppentheater Halle, Crowd (2017),L’Etang (2021) and EXTRA LIFE (2023, invited to Theatertreffen 2024). Vienne’s photographs and installations have been exhibited in numerous museums, including the Whitney Museum, New York; Center Pompidou, Paris; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires and the Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva. She has published two books: JERK/Through Their Tears (2011) in collaboration with Jonathan Capdevielle, Dennis Cooper and Peter Rehberg and 40 PORTRAITS (2003-2008) in collaboration with Dennis Cooper and Pierre Dourthe (2012). Their work has led to various publications and the original music from their shows to several albums.
The exhibition is part of a collaboration between the Haus am Waldsee, the Georg Kolbe Museum and the Sophiensælen. The three institutions are bringing Vienne’s work in all its complexity to the city as part of Berlin Art Week 2024 and presenting different approaches to her multifaceted practice, which is located between photography, sculpture and installation, film, choreography and theater. Haus am Waldsee opens This Causes Consciousness to Fracture on September 11, 2024 (exhibition from September 12, 2024 – January 12, 2025). At the Georg Kolbe Museum, the exhibition presenting Vienne’s work in the context of avant-garde women artists opens on September 12, 2024 (exhibition from September 13, 2024 – March 16, 2025). The film Jerk by Gisèle Vienne will be shown as part of an artist talk at the Sophiensaele on September 15, 2024. The screenings of Crowd are planned there for November 14/15/16, 2024.
Gisèle Vienne: Jerk
September 15, 2024, 2 p.m. (Audience discussion afterwards at 3:30 p.m.)
Film, France 2021
Ballroom
Approx. 60 min.
French with English subtitles
Gisèle Vienne: Crowd
November 14/15/16, 2024, 8 pm
performance, dance
Ballroom
Approx. 100 min.
No language
Tickets available from August 6 via sophiensaele.com
WHEN?
Film screening: Sunday, September 15, 2024, 2 p.m.
Artist talk: Sunday, September 15, 2024, 3:30 pm
WHERE?
Sophiensaele
Sophienstraße 18
10178 Berlin
COST?
Jerk: Regular 10 EUR, reduced 7 EUR
Artist talk: Free admission
