The Adventure of the Empty House

2019 | Site-specific installation | Collaboration with the Faculty for Architecture of TU Munich

In order to explore the intersections between image and sound, we got invited by Munich based Composer, Producer and DJ Benedikt Brachtel. In collaboration with the faculty for architecture of the technical university TUM, we conceived a site-specific installation with images by Viennese artist Thomas Albdorf. The images are from his work »General View«. We installed them using both large prints on PVC as used on construction fences, as well as projections. The install was presented in the former office building of Deckel Maschinen Werke, conceived by famous architect Walter Henn – the one who had also built the famous Osram office buildings. Over 6 floors, visitors would walk through the installations and be guided by sound-loops, created by Benedikt Brachtel. Benedikt did a live performance on the top floor, mixing all sound loops and generating a new piece. This experiment enabled us to experiment with several things that are new to our practice: The intersection between photographic images and sound, as well as the installation of images in non-gallery spaces.

The Rite

2018 | Dancetheatre | Live-Music & Composition

«The Rite» is the new interpretation of the heathen rituals that inspired Nijinsky and Stravinsky to the «Sacre du printemps». To this date the piece is still regarded as a revolutionary choreography of modern dance history. The choreography of Dustin Klein is an homage to the Ballets Russes. I used different recordings of the original Stravinsky score, tear them apart, sample from them, rework and rearrange them. I create live loops and add synthesizers, Rhodes and percussion to create a new, idiosyncratic composition that references the original but takes it to a modern, club-like ritual experience.

A contemporary composition, a strong costume design and new movements unite with traditional folklore and familiar musical themes to a bold synthesis. The piece is danced by soloists from the Bavarian State Ballet.

Choreography: Dustin Klein
Composition and live music: Simon Karlstetter
Dancers: (Soloists of the Bavarian State Ballet) Matteo Dilaghi, Nikita Korotkov, Margarida Neto, Elisa Mestres, Ilia Sarkisov, Nicola Strada
Stagedesign & Costume: Louise Flanagan

Der Greif #11 (with Jason Fulford)

2018 | Print Publication & Performances | Lothringer 13, Munich, Aperture Gallery, New York

Buy Der Greif issue 11 by Jason Fulford

For issue 11, Der Greif has invited Jason Fulford, American photographer, artist and publisher of J&L Books as guest editor. Sourcing from our large archive of past submissions, Fulford’s edit takes us on an eclectic tour through diverse visual languages.

In order to visualize and explore the various ways and intersections between images and text, Der Greif and guest editor Jason Fulford organised a special event related to issue 11: A variety show in 8 acts where the activity changes every seven minutes. The event originates in Jason Fulford’s editing process. For issue 11, he sourced photographs from parts of our digital archive of past submissions, starting with around 40.000 pictures. His pre-selection for the issue played an important role in the making of the show.

In collaboration with Jörg Koopmann, artist, photographer and curator at Lothringer13, we invited 5 Munich-based artists to contribute to the variety show. We did a second version of the project at Aperture Gallery in New York City in February 2019, featuring 6 New York based artists.

After 10 years and 10 print issues, Der Greif has decided to explore new territories and to change its appearance. In this and future issues, we invite guest editors to work with the same concepts of de- and recontextualizing single images through their individual working methods.

Jason Fulford is a photographer and co-founder of J&L Books. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a frequent lecturer at universities.

Thread Count

2017 | Physical and Virtual Exhibition | CO-OP, Unseen Amsterdam | September 21 till 24

threadcount.dergreif-online.de

Taking the jubilee issue #10 of Der Greif as the starting point, a selection of 24 photographers shown in the issue was asked to invite a photographer of their choice to submit a photograph that ‘reacts’ to theirs. This started a chain of invited photographers whose work responded to the previous image shown, and so forth.

For CO-OP, Der Greif brought this thread of images into the physical space, making it fully accessible for the audience to interact with. The images were presented in a grid, produced as blocks of postcards in A5 size. Visitors were allowed to take images with them. Thus, the project created a juxtaposition between the ‘virtual space’, a “market” where the image threads were produced and the physical space where the collection of images were displayed, but where images diminished according to how many were taken away by visitors. Each image was printed 25 times and remained visible until all 25 copies had been removed by the audience. A removed image created an empty space within the grid-hanging that still referred to the once physically present image. Once an image had been removed completely in the physical space, it was also marked as being removed on the website, thus the online space ‘reacted’ to the physical space and viewers online could see the audience’s reactions in the space. The images’ presentation clearly engages with the photograph as a reproducible medium and simultaneously questions the different “values” of a photographic image as well as its distribution – in the physical, as well as in the virtual space. The project wants to foster this discussion, especially during a photography fair.

Old News

2017 | Dancetheatre | Music

Does the end ever justify the means? Can acts of terror and abuses of power ever be justified by good intentions, and might redeeming features be found even in the personalities of some of history’s most tyrannical characters such as Herod the Great?

»Old News« controversially challenges our assumptions around the concept of absolute evil, and our often one-dimensional perception of historical figures to examine holistically the multi-dimensional human behind the atrocities, conveying their triumphs, emotions, motivations and fears. In expressing the duality of power and oppression, the atemporality of tyranny in human behavior is exposed through the performances of each dancer. Roles change; power shifts; time, place and scale are irrelevant.

In »Old News«, choreographer Dustin Klein once again collaborates with the multi talented composer and artist Simon Karlstetter and costume and set designer Louise Flanagan, alongside an international group of classical and contemporary dancers.

Concept: Dustin Klein, Simon Karlstetter, Louise Flanagan
Choreography: Dustin Klein
Music: Simon Karlstetter
Sound-Design: Karim Weth
Dancers: (Soloists of the Bavarian State Ballet) Jonah Cook, Seo Dukin, Maria Gonzales, Nicholas Losada, Nicha Rodboon
Stagedesign & Costumes Louise Flanagan

(Un)filtered Scenarios

2016 | Virtual and Physical Exhibition | SITUATIONS, Fotomuseum Winterthur | September 16 till November 27

situations.dergreif-online.de

»(Un)filtered Scenarios« is an experiment inquiring the selection process through the dynamics of net-based distribution.

Breaking with the idea of single-person authorship, the project uses a »chain letter« email that invites individuals to participate in the selection of images for the online exhibition by choosing one image from the open call. The email is sent to four initial participants, continuing its path as the invitees are asked to forward the email to two further participants once they have made their choice.

The chosen images are displayed in an online exhibition on this website. The selection process is anonymized, but participants are asked to fill out a form including standard social categories like gender, age or occupation. They are also asked to leave a personal note on why they chose the image. Fotomuseum visualizes the filters and displays the personal, possibly structural narratives that unfold around the process of distributed image selection.

Der Greif – A Process 2.0

2016 | Exhibition, Performance, Discourse | Krakow Photomonth | May 12 till 15

process2.dergreif-online.de
dergreif-online.de/guest-room/lars-willumeit

We have been invited by Lars Willumeit, curator of the Krakow Photomonth 2016 Main Program — »Crisis? What Crisis?!« — to perform A Process 2.0 during the opening weekend at the festival centre. A Process 2.0 questions photography in its digital form as a distinct medium, its handling with the use of the Internet as well as photography’s haptic stimuli and common perception of authorship. A Process 2.0 is using the World Wide Web’s participatory structure to connect participants, visitors and editors across national boundaries—made possible due to an online transmission of the performative exhibition. A Process 2.0 is the continuation of A Process – Ein Prozess, first performed over the course of two months at Neue Galerie im Höhmannhaus, Augsburg, in 2014. The basis for A Process 2.0 is an open call. These submissions are curated by DER GREIF for the performance as well as by Lars Willumeit in a »Guest-Room« in April. This once more enhances the discussion about de- and recontextualization of single photographic images – both on- and offline.

Repeater RPTR II

2015 | Dancetheatre | Live-Music and Composition

StudioFurio.com

»Yes! Now you really look as if you have lost any track of time, as if you would forget at any moment the one that took place before.«

In the new version of »Repeater RPTR«, six dancers, one actor and one musician flirt with the audience, explore means of the stage and try to turn the particular into something repetitive. They continuously claim something in order to doubt it in the next moment…

Concept: Studio Furio
Choreography: Dustin Klein
Music: Simon Karlstetter
Text: Anna Gschnitzer
Acting: Felix von Bredow
Dancers: (Soloists of the Bavarian State Ballet) Emma Barrowman, Stephanie Hancox, Zuzana Zahradniková,
Peter Jolesch, Dustin Klein, Ilia Sarkisov
Stagedesign Matthias Lohscheidt
Costume: Louise Flanagan
Light: Michael Bischoff
Sound: Karim Weth
Production: Claudio Ricci

Der Greif – A Process

2014 | Exhibition, Performance, Discourse | Neue Galerie im Höhmannhaus | March 18 till May 18

process.dergreif-online.de
dergreif-online.de/shop

Over a two-months time frame, we transferred the different steps of our artistic work – curation, de- and re-contextualization of submitted works – into real space and made this process accessible to the public through a performative act. Between March and May 2014, »A Process« raised questions concerning photography in the digital age and in the light of the Internet as well as photography’s haptic stimuli and common perception of authorship. The exhibition used the Internet’s participatory structure to connect participants, visitors, and artists across national boundaries – made possible through an online transmission of the entire exhibition. It was accompanied by several events, such as readings and discussions, and comes with a book that features both combinations of images and texts that were part of the exhibition, as well as essays. The exhibition featured a selection of 279 photographs from 279 photographers coming from 33 countries, as well as poems by 4 authors, curated by Andreas Bülhoff.

Repeater RPTR

2014 | Dancetheatre | Concept, Music

StudioFurio.com

Already the title of the piece plays with the term of repetition and its transformation. Daily-life activities are quoted and reproduced; activities that wear themselves off but renew themselves through the repeated enlisting into time and space.

»Repeater RPTR« reflects serial rhythms of life, as sequencing principles, as transcendental phenomenons, as paranoid fantasies, as paradigms in which you seem to be stuck like in a loop. But at the same time as possibility and opportunity to do the same thing again differently, or: to do once again, what you’ve never done before.

Concept: Simon Karlstetter, Dustin Klein
Choreography: Dustin Klein
Music: Simon Karlstetter
Text: Anna Gschnitzer
Acting: Felix von Bredow
Dancers: (Solosists of the Bavarian State Ballet) Emma Barrowman, Stephanie Hancox, Zuzana Zahradniková,
Peter Jolesch, Dustin Klein, Ilia Sarkisov
Stagedesign & Light: Matthias Lohscheidt
Costumes: Louise Flanagan
Production: Claudio Ricci