27/1/2006
Olaf Breuning
Sketch, London
The artist travelled around the world, filming actor Brian Kerstetter in disparate locations. The result is the video installation "Home", which is presented as a diptych: one screen shows a bizarre collection of colour travelogue; the other screen features black-and white footage of an uncouth, rather demented young man in a hotel room talking to the camera.
Home
In 2003, Swiss artist Olaf Breuning travelled around the world, filming
actor Brian Kerstetter in disparate locations including Breuning's home
base of New York; a Caribbean beach; Manchester, England; an Alpine
pool in Switzerland; Machu Piuchu; the Grand Canyon; Pennsylvania Amish
country; the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas; and the ueber-kitsch Madonna
Inn in southern California. The result is the video installation Home,
which is presented as a diptych: one screen shows a bizarre collection
of colour travelogue-like footage nonsensically mixed with publicly
staged acts of violence and aggression; the other screen features
black-and white footage of an uncouth, rather demented young man in a
hotel room talking to the camera. This crystaleyed slacker narrates the
series of seemingly unconnected scenes that play on the other screen.
The ten episodic stories or fantasies in Home (it is not clear what
kind of reality is being presented) jump from one to the next like
dreams or fragmented memories. The contrast of black-and-white versus
colour simply but effectively establishes dichotomies within the
installation: dreaming/awake, fantasy/reality, interior
dialogue/external action.
Nothing is clear-cut in Home, and the seeming
unreliability of the narrator and lack of a coherent 'plot' makes it
difficult to separate the real from the surreal. 'I deliberately keep
very close to media sources,' says Breuning, 'so I relate to the
present. So-called media reality is a presence that's almost everywhere
you look today. That makes it difficult to define... I'm tempted to cut
the concept of reality out of my vocabulary.' The complicated nature of
reality in today's media-saturated society is thus manifested in
Breuning's work.
Home is a continuation of the artist's exploration and regurgitation of
throwaway popular culture. 'My work is a way of vomiting up my daily
life,' says Breuning. The zombie-like behaviour and teen antics in
portions of Home recall low-budget slasher films, whilst the unhinged,
rootless protagonist/narrator echoes the characters in Jim Jarmusch's
Stranger than Paradise. There is also a hefty dose of MTV in the mix,
with a portion of Home very closely resembling a music video. Breuning
uses the cliches of mediated popular culture but removes the bridging
elements like narrative, plot and character. His work becomes a
pastiche of the affectations of that culture, rather than of the
culture itself. With the glue removed these bits of pop become absurd,
bizarre and vacuous.
Breuning worked on every aspect of the production of Home, serving as
writer, director, producer, costume designer, crew, location scout, set
designer, cameraman, composer and editor; using friends or other
non-professionals as actors. The ambitious project took a year for the
artist to complete. Breuning is also a photographer, and as with
previous video works, has produced a series of stills from Home.
Opening Reception: Saturday 28 January, 12:30-3:30pm
sketch
9 Conduit Street - London
Open: Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm
Free admission