Requiem (Nr. 1–7), 2007
Requiem (Nr. 1–7)
2007
LightJet print, variable dimensions
Edition 6 + 2 ap
The photo works were created in the context of the film installation Requiem (2007). Like Clown (2005), it 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
Requiem (Nr. 1–7):
– Julian Rosefeldt – Requiem, Galería Helga de Alvear, Madrid, March–May 2008
Requiem (Nr. 1,3):
– Julian Rosefeldt. The Ship of Fools, Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, January 2008
Requiem (Nr. 2):
– The Ephemeral, Arndt Berlin, November 2011–February 2012 (curated by Tiffany Wood-Arndt, Matthias Arndt)
– Julian Rosefeldt. The Ship of Fools, Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, January 2008
Literature
Berg, Stephan, et al., eds. Julian Rosefeldt: Film Works. Ostfildern, 2008.