The Perfectionist, 2005

Trilogy of Failure (Part 3)
The Perfectionist (Nr. 1–3)
2005
Lambda print, variable dimensions
Edition 4 + 2 ap


The photo works were created in the context of the film installation The Perfectionist (2005). It's the third part of Rosefeldt’s Trilogy of Failure (2004/2005) in which three different settings draw a picture of our vain entanglement with everyday rituals. In each case the protagonist is caught up in a microcosm that suggests mental and spatial claustrophobia. As a reaction to the hopeless situation, he plunges into permanent Sisyphean activity – going nowhere and producing nothing. The motifs of perpetual attempt and constant failure find their equivalent in the repetitive structure of the loop. The scenes are allegories of our frantic and ultimately futile attempts to escape the surrounding norms, constraints, structures and rituals by which we are determined.

The Perfectionist, in contrast to the protagonists of the first two parts of the trilogy, appears not split in two but rather as three identical configurations of the alter ego. While two of them fail time and again in their attempts to start up a plane or simulate a parachute jump within their own four walls, the third – stricken with doubt – constantly checks and rechecks his parachute, without ever even coming near a plane. The film combines the Sisyphean motif, apparent throughout the trilogy, with allusions to the tragic story of Icarus, flying too high, falling and dying for his dream.

Summarised from Stefan Berg and Katerina Gregos, in: Julian Rosefeldt: Film Works (2008)


Exhibitions / Catalogues

The Perfectionist (Nr. 1–3):
– Julian Rosefeldt. Lonely Planet, Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich, September–October 2012
– Julian Rosefeldt – Making Of. Film Installations and Photo Works 2004–2010, DA2 – Domus Artium, Salamanca,
   October 2010–March 2011 (curated by Javier Panera)
– Julian Rosefeldt. The Ship of Fools, Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, January 2008
The Perfectionist (Nr. 1):
– Julian Rosefeldt – World-Making. Film and Photo Works 2001–2011, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, April–June 2012
   (curated by Mei-ching Fang, Fang-wei Chang; catalogue)
– Julian Rosefeldt. Photo Works, Arndt, Berlin, June–August 2011
The Perfectionist (Nr. 2):
– Julian Rosefeldt, Galerie West, Den Haag, July–August 2012
– Julian Rosefeldt – World-Making. Film and Photo Works 2001–2011, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, April–June 2012
   (curated by Mei-ching Fang, Fang-wei Chang; catalogue)

Literature

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