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23/9/2004

Elodie Pong

Halle fur Kunst, Luneburg

Contemporary tales - a certain general

A red carpet leading to a street; young people engaged in everyday activities; dialogues in the form of SMSs running across the screen. Contemporary narratives are presented that seem in no way connected with each other, but that spread a similar mood all the same.

With Contemporary tales, Halle für Kunst will present the first solo exhibition of the Swiss artist Elodie Pong (born in 1966) in Germany. The winner of the SWISS AWARD 2003 at the International Film and Video Festival VIPER in Basel has conceived three new video works for the show in Lüneburg. These videos further pursue thoughts and approaches she began with in her previous works.

Her most important themes include the content-related illumination of the concept of intimacy, the utilisation of the body as a means of expression, the visual staging of the body's surroundings for finding one's identity, as well as the capturing subtle interpersonal emotions.

What serves as a common element in a previous video series piece entitled "A Certain general", which Pong created with friends and acquaintances, is a red carpet on which the respective persons perform actions they felt like doing. The red carpet appears again in the Lüneburg exhibition and points the way to the next video work following this definite path. "Set" is a 15-second loop with an underlying electronic beat of the band Velma showing a drive along a street that suddenly disappears in a white square. The action is no longer determined by a person. Instead, an isolated mechanism is depicted that previously accompanied the actions. The tales pop up, disappear in a void, and start anew.

"Script" documents Elodie Pong's dialogues with friends, which she held from the end of July to the end of August of this year via SMS. The artist thus addresses a form of communication through a medium which constitutes a crucial part of today's communication society. Whether fictitious or real, the viewer gains insights into the communication and patterns of thought of a person he or she considers an artist. The voyeuristic gaze is challenged not by physical but by mental nakedness.

The video work "Characters" also focuses on the viewer's inquisitive gaze. Pong filmed various persons engaged in daily activities. Priority is not given to a continuous narrative plot, instead, generally known tales are linked. Again Pong plays with the fiction of familiar actions attributed to certain persons, actions, however, that are so general that they can be carried out by each of the involved persons. The soundtrack of the approx. 5-minute video is by Trans Am.

Contemporary tales establishes a flow of emotions that are the expression of a generation. Pong's videos give an account of moments in which what is incidental appears special and vice versa. But it is precisely the seemingly interchangeableness of actions and dialogues in which the artist's unique expression lies.

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Within the frame of the exhibition, Elodie Pong's film "Secrets for Sale" (2002), which was recently broadcast by ARTE, will be screened on September 24.

In the project "ADN/ARN Any Deal Now/Any Reality Now", which was worked out during the course of three years and pursued on various media levels, Pong collected more than 300 secrets which she bought from the respective owners for an individually negotiated price. During the entire process of negotiation and filming, the artist maintained a distance to the spectacular. The resulting film, "Secrets for Sale", which gives an account of both the rules of the game and the numerous selected adaptations, retains its unpretentious visual language and touches in every spectator feelings of "too much", "not enough", or a desire for "more". We find ourselves confronted with our own lust for the spectacle and our voyeuristic perception, and must decide for ourselves how to deal with our emotions. With "Secrets for Sale", the artist highlights the current social phenomenon that makes people unfold their private affairs and intimate matters to an anonymous public in numerous live TV shows.

Supported by Land Niedersachsen, Stadt Lüneburg, Lüneburgischer Landschaftsverband and Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung.

Opening: 23 September 2004, 7pm

further dates:
Secrets for Sale. Screening within the exhibition 09/24/2004, 7pm

Image: untitled, 2004

Venue: Halle für Kunst, Reichenbachstr. 2, D - 21335 Lüneburg

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