23 Sep 2010

Christoph Faulhaber: 'World Expo//Pictures of an Exhibition' at Open Museum, Hamburg

In his solo show at Open Museum, Hamburg, Christoph Faulhaber is presenting his new project: The Palau Triptych.

The center piece (Blue Sky – Palau) is a documentary movie shot in Palau. In November 2009, six ex-detainees from the US Prison in Guantánamo Bay have been released to Palau, which is known for its sparkling water, shiny beaches and beautiful diving spots. Faulhaber traveled to the tiny island nation of Palau in the South Pacific to visit the six men, which are part of the uighur minority in western China. He interviewed their Australian interpreter and his Excellency, the President of Palau.

Following his trip to Palau, Faulhaber went to Shenzhen, China, to visit the 'Oil Painting Village' Dafen. Dafen has gained enormous reputation for being the world's biggest conglomeration for reproducing and copying artworks. In Dafen, he worked together with a couple of local artists to reproduce oil paintings from the portraits of the six men. These portraits will be juxtaposed by another painting, a copy of Max Pechstein's 'Palau Triptych'. Pechstein painted this idyllic even pastoral vision of the pristine and virgin island in 1917. Some years after his trip to the South Sea in 1913/1914 when Palau was still a German Colony.

In this series of work Faulhaber focuses on some main questions surrounding the ideological and philosophical notion of the 'picture' today: What is the global state of the picture? How strong is the prevalence of the picture? What kind of picture are we supposed to conceive when thinking of Guantánamo or the World Expo in Shanghai? What is the state of the picture with regard to a global system of industrialized tools for copies, imitation and reproduction? Or, as W.J.T. Mitchell has posed the question: 'What is the work of art in the age of biocybernetic reproduction?'

Christoph Faulhaber, born 1972, is today one of the most promising young German artists. His work has been shown amongst others at the National Gallery Prague, Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, Deitch Projects New York, Laiyan Gallery Hong Kong, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Ludwigshafen, City Museum Remscheid and Kunstverein Hannover.

Open Museum is a recently established non-profit artspace that presents local and international artists to Hamburg.

More info about the artist:
www.christophfaulhaber.de

Opening: Friday, Sep. 24th, 2010, 7.30–9.00pm
Exhibition: Sep. 25th until Oct. 18th, 2010

Open Museum
Pulverteich 12
D–20099 Hamburg
Germany

Contact:
Berndt Jasper
jasper@balticraw.org
balticraw.org/blog/