Welcome / Willkommen
Two-channel video installation, 2013
5.1 surround sound, 14 min.Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, installation view, 2013.
Photography: Lene MarkusenLene Markusen exposes visitors to her exhibition to a multitude of invitations and promises. In the studio space 45cbm, one enters a seemingly private room that is filled with countless projections: small pictures of brightly colored flowers, smiling faces, temple buildings, ornaments, color circles, landscapes, existential questions and countless invitations appear scattered on the walls. These promise world peace, happiness and long life, or pose questions: What is a human being? What comes after? Peace in the midst of difficulties? These are charged images and text fragments that invite visitors to indulge in their own ideas or projections. Confusion and exhaustion can be possible consequences. Speaking in tongues, singing and prayer can be heard from the darkness of the room, the image and sound overlays convey the feeling of having become part of something bigger. The atmospheric situation points to the boundaries between presence and absence, community and solitude. For several years, the artist has been collecting flyers with religious, and spiritual messages from all over Europe in order to investigate the visual and ideological meanings conveyed by various communities. The video projections show fragments from this collection. In combination with the sound installation, the projected images enable a detailed examination of promises, imagination and utopias. The internal space hinted at in the flyers has seemingly become real here.
Elena KorowinKunsthalle Baden-Baden, installation view, 2013.
Photography: Lene Markusen