Installation views

Requiem
2007
4-channel film installation
Colour, sound                                                       
Shot on Super-16mm
Converted to HD-SR and transferred onto DVD
Aspect ratio 16:9
Loop, 12 min 1 sec
Edition 6 + 2 ap


Requiem (2007), like Clown (2005), takes place in the Brazilian jungle. Four large projections encircle the viewer, who is transported deep into the rainforest by images and sounds of buzzing insects, singing birds and raindrops falling on vegetation. They seem to emphasise the forest as a sublime, untouched, almost paradise-like space – an illusion that is dissolved when suddenly huge trees start, one after another, to collapse into the tangle of green without a trace of human involvement.

The paradisiac notion of the rainforest obtains an apocalyptic dimension; utopia merges into dystopia. Literally read as a requiem for the dying rainforest, the work is further an allegory of the futility of human existence, the death of the subject, the extinguishing of the individual within the impenetrable, incomprehensible jungle of context.

Summarised from Stefan Berg and Katerina Gregos, in: Julian Rosefeldt: Film Works (2008);
and Søren Lose, in: Kurs: Havnen, Højen, Søen, Torvet, Tæet (2009)


Exhibitions / Catalogues

– All the Words for Rock. Nature and Conflict, Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres, November 2017–May 2018
– About Trees, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, October 2015–January 2016 (curated by Peter Fischer; catalogue)
– Julian Rosefeldt. American Night, YOUNGPROJECTS, Los Angeles, September–October 2012 (curated by Paul Young)
– Asteroide B612 | Diseño regenerativo y balances ambientales, MAM Museo de Arte Moderno de la Ciudad de México,
   México City, May–November 2010 (curated by Víctor Palacios)
– Kurs: Træet, Fuglsang Kunstmuseum, Toreby, September 2009–January 2010 (curated by Søren Lose; catalogue)
– Green Platform. Art, Ecology, Sustainability, Centro di Cultura Contemporànea Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence,
   April–July 2009 (curated by Lorenzo Giusti, Valentina Gensini; catalogue)
– Die Tropen. Ansichten von der Mitte der Weltkugel, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, September 2008–January 2009
   (curated by Alfons Hug, Peter Junge, Viola König; catalogue)
– Julian Rosefeldt – Requiem, Galería Helga de Alvear, Madrid, March–May 2008
– Relíquias e Ruínas, Espaço Cultural Oi Futuro, Rio de Janeiro, December 2007–February 2008 (curated by Alfons Hug;
   catalogue)

Literature

Berg, Stephan, et al., eds. Julian Rosefeldt: Film Works. Ostfildern, 2008.

Film Credits

Director of Photography: Vitor Amati
Assistant: DoPMarcela Marques Santiago
Sound Recording: Alfredo Alves Guerra
Location Manager: Chicão Fill, Amazon Film Productions
Production Manager: Dionisio Alves da Silva
Driver: Igor Cosso
Location Runners: Elson & Ramyses Taveira Paixoto, Ubirajara Silveira, José Alves
Production Assistant: Kathrin Hensse, Goethe-Institut São Paulo

Editor: Arturo Martinez
Postproduction: Pictorion das werk berlin GmbH
Project Managers das werk: Hannes Andresen, Carolina Ronzino
Colourists: Phil Whitfield, Nico Hauter, Philipp Orgassa
Technical Support: Alex Falk
Postproduction Sound: Tonstudio Hanse Warns
Re-recording / Sound Editors: Florian Kühnle, Markus Stemler

Camera Supplier: Camera Dois São Paulo
Processing & Telecine: Casablanca São Paulo
Transport: Simone Molitor, Goethe-Institut São Paulo
Film Stock: Kodak

Supported by:
Goethe-Institutes Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil

Shot in Amazonia, Brazil, 2007

Written, directed and produced by Julian Rosefeldt

All rights reserved © Julian Rosefeldt