Kerstin Cmelka
dal 8/3/2012 al 28/4/2012
Segnalato da
8/3/2012
Kerstin Cmelka
Signal - Center for Contemporary Art, Malmo
Step in Shelter. Cmelka's Microdramas bring together a motley troop of archetypical behaviours that tell the story of a melancholic, inexorable and absurd human condition, put on repeat.
In Kerstin Cmelka’s Microdramas we encounter condensed excerpts of classical drama. Sometimes the scenes are borrowed from the realm of theatre, cinema or literature, while sometimes they are taken out of traditional folksongs and popular culture. Everything gets covered from fateful relationship dramas such as Henrik Ibsen and Michael Haneke, to absurdly improbable dialogues between well-known personalities, as in the case of a hotel room interview with Steven Spielberg and Bianca Jagger available on YouTube.
Self-obsessiveness, attempts to manage dysfunctional relationships, the desperation to break loose from assumed roles or everyday boredom are recurring situations that are portrayed in Cmelka’s performances and films.
Cmelka does not use professional actors, but friends, colleagues and family. In doing so she consciously lets fictitious and actual relationships mix freely both on stage and beyond it. Human relationships and how we relate to each other therefore become, at one and the same time, the very core of the microdramas’ action and making. Rather than giving us the perfect reproduction of the original model, Cmelka’s Microdramas bring together a motley troop of archetypical behaviours that tell the story of a melancholic, inexorable and absurd human condition, put on repeat.
Kerstin Cmelka, born 1974 in Mödling, Austria, lives and works in Berlin
Image: Kerstin Cmelka, Change, 2009. Set photo.
Opening Friday 9 March 7-9pm
Signal - Center for Contemporary Art
Monbijougatan 17 - Malmo
Hours: Thursday--Friday 2--6pm, Saturday--Sunday noon--4pm
Free admission