News (Excerpt - 2)

Julian Rosefeldt / Piero Steinle
News (excerpt 2)
1998
Part of 2-channel video installation / 12-channel sound installation
Colour, sound
Dimensions variable
Loop, 2 min 51 sec
Edition 5 + 2 ap


Leaving behind their focus on architecture in the broadest sense, Julian Rosefeldt and his former collaborator Piero Steinle dedicated themselves to structures within different systems: namely, the media. For News (1998) they searched through the archives of German news programmes of private
and public TV from West and East Germany.

The artists started to excerpt texts, sounds and gestures of newsreaders in order to reveal repetitive patterns within language and image. Two screens and twelve soundtracks constitute a sort of meta media language, a grammar of the camera. It becomes evident that even the news, which is expected to present an objective truth, shows a subjectively constructed version of reality. Certain topics are intentionally combined with specific images: harmless news such as the birth of zoo animals is included so viewers can digest war reports, insignificant images depict the outside of buildings housing politically important meetings, and so on.

When one looks at today’s online platforms and magazines, this kind of news transmission appears almost outdated. News can hence be read as a ‘multimedia requiem, a swan song on a vanishing form of news transmission’ (D. Krystof).

Summarised from Armin Zweite and Doris Krystof, in: News: Eine Videoinstallation von Julian Rosefeldt und Piero Steinle (1998)

The work was initiated by Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf.

All rights reserved © Julian Rosefeldt / Piero Steinle


Exhibitions / Catalogues

– News Flash, Kunsthaus Nürnberg, Nürnberg, September–November 2018 (curated by Harriet Zilch; catalogue)
– News – Julian Rosefeldt / Piero Steinle, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, January–March 1999 (curated by Klaus Werner)
– News – Julian Rosefeldt / Piero Steinle, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, November 1998–January 1999 (curated by Frauke Syamken)
– News – Julian Rosefeldt / Piero Steinle, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, July–August 1998 (curated by Reinhard Spieler;
   catalogue)