Miriam Gossing & Lina Sieckmann
The weird and the eerie
The film essays of Miriam Gossing and Lina Sieckmann are permeated by a tension that evokes a creepy atmosphere. The deserted interiors, backdrops, and decors look enigmatic and uncanny. The British pop theorist Mark Fisher, whom the artists evoke in their exhibition title, described this kind of deconstruction and alienation of reality as “weird and eerie.”
The artists choose symbolically charged places for their observations: single-family homes in American suburbia, high-rise chapels in Nevada, or the adventure architectures of a ferry staged as a cruise ship. Their films are characterized by a dramaturgy in which the protagonists remain invisible while their stories are told by an off-camera voice of compiled questions from interviews and fragments of chatroom contributions. The traces of the absent people become visible in fetishized objects that become unruly symbols of their unfulfilled desires and dreams.
This exhibition is part of the IN FOCUS series in which individual artists’ positions from the program of the IMAI Foundation are presented in the Video Lounge.
The exhibition will open on Saturday, 11 July 2020 at 10 a.m. The artists will be present from 6 to 9 p.m.
Souvenir (2019), 20:50 min. 16-mm film, transferred to HD video, color/sound
Sonntag, Büscherhöfchen 2 (Sunday, Büscherhöfchen 2) (2014), 13:23 min. 16-mm film, transferred to HD video, color/sound
Desert Miracles (2015), 11:41 min., 16-mm film, transferred to DCP, color/sound
Darija Šimunović
The artists Miriam Gossing and Lina Sieckmann (b. 1988) live and work in Cologne and Portland, Oregon. They studied at the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Their works have been shown in art museums and at film festivals such as the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, and Anthology Film Archives in New York. Their films have received such awards as the Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis and the NRW-Preis of the Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. Since 2017 their works have been in the distribution program of the IMAI Foundation.
To the artists’ websiteExhibition Venue
Videolounge der Stiftung IMAI im
NRW-Forum Düsseldorf
Ehrenhof 2
40479 Düsseldorf
Hours
Tuesday - Thursday 11 a.m. - 18.00 p.m.
Friday 11 a.m. - 21.00 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m. - 21.00 p.m.
Sunday 10 a.m. - 18.00 p.m.
