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Joachim
Koester
Tarantism
& Pit Music
January 25th - March 29th 2008
It is a great pleasure
for Galleri Nicolai Wallner to present Tarantism & Pit Music, an
exhibition with two new works and one old by Joachim Koester.
Tarantism is a condition in Southern Italy resulting form the bite
of the wolf spider, known as the tarantula. The bite causes numerous
symptoms from nausea, difficulties in speech, delirium, heightened
excitability and restlessness in the victims. Their bodies are seized
by convulsions that previously could only be cured by a sort of
frenzied dancing. This 'dancing-cure' emerged during the Middle
Ages and eventually evolved into the highly stylized dance for couples
which today is known as the The Tarantella. In his film Tarantism
Koester has set out to explore the original promise of the tarantella
phenomena: a dance of uncontrolled and compulsive movements, spasms
and convulsions. The film is structured like a game, utilizing this
idea to generate the movements of the dancers. In six individually
choreographed parts the dancers attempt to map the fridges or "terra
incognita" of the body.
For the project Occupied Plots Koester has revisited some of the
sites of Ed Ruscha's seminal 1970 photo series Real Estate Opportunities.
Rucha's vacated plots have since been sold, built and changed. By
re-photographing these former 'opportunities' the artist engages
in what he calls the "archeology of abandoned futures".
The title Pit Music refers to music coming from the orchestra pit
and to the set-up of the installation, which consists of a stage
and a pit. Apart from this, the work is video documentation of a
concert in a gallery with a string quartet playing Shostakovich's
string quartet No. 8 in C minor. The music continues uninterrupted
all through the video, but due to the editing and images in slow
and stop motion the music changes between being represented as what
could be termed diegetic and non-diegetic - referring to reality
vs. fiction, as well as the idea of showing art and causing a response.
Pit Music was first filmed and shown at gallery Nicolai Wallner
in 1996. Apart from Koester's above-mentioned intentions regarding
performativity and documentation, there is another reason we have
chosen to re-install this piece. Pit Music is also a micro narrative.
Without nostalgia the video portraits a group of people, and evokes
an art scene at a specific time in Copenhagen more than a decade
ago.
Joachim Koester has shown extensively at galleries and museums in
Europe, USA, and Asia including MCA (Chicago), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven),
Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (Paris), PS1 (New
York), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), and
Louisiana (Humlebæk). His work has been exhibited at the Kwangju
Biennale, Documenta Kassel, and Venice Biennale. He is currently
shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize.
We are happy to welcome you in the gallery.
With kind regards,
Galleri Nicolai Wallner
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