2/4/2009
Eiko Grimberg
Klemm's, Berlin
Folie du jour. In Grimberg's photo and video works suchlike situations are captured and exposed by the eye of the camera. The camera itself takes here the position of the seemingly uninvolved observer. The focus is set on situations that do not appear very special but rather ordinary.
Folie du jour, daily madness: what surrounds and affects us every day by its vehement unimportunateness. All those things we need to do day by day, and which automatically take on significance in our lives.
In Eiko Grimberg’s photo and video works suchlike situations are captured and exposed by the eye of the camera. The camera itself takes here the position of the seemingly uninvolved observer. The focus is set on situations that do not appear very special but rather ordinary; the situations observed are those that always happen to be seen from the corner of one’s eye. In his observations Eiko Grimberg locates himself in the periphery of the ongoings: at the point of intersection between inner and outer, profane and particular settings.
He implicitly raises the question of the significance of the artistic act, which in this case does not generate anything new but draws upon already given circumstances. Yet, the significance lies in the observation and the perspective, revealing the decision-making process in favor for these settings.
The video work Monologue (after Blanchot) partly refers to the text 'La folie du jour' by French philosopher Maurice Blanchot. The way the text creates attention by continual observation is also taken up by the video piece in the manner of its text-image montage. Both, text and images, seem to come upon accidentally in order to create a moment of attendance and location within a trivial scenery. This observation happens – and the observer becomes him/herself a witness of the cooccurrence of intention and coincidence. The view is that out of, or maybe into, a window to a scenery that is quotidian: a look into the launderette on the street, whose idiosyncrasies are eclipsed by its daily functioning, its utilization that turns it into a commonplace. In his works Eiko Grimberg frequents these commonplaces, these notions and daily myths that are a document for the structures we use to live and act in.
Opening: Friday, April 3rd 2009 from 6 – 9 p.m.
Klemm's
Brunnenstrasse 7 - Berlin
Free admission