LUX MONTHLY - LUX28. Stephan Dillemuth: Exhibition - Screening - Talk. 18 – 28 September 2008

[newswire at lux.org.uk]

Image: Elbsandsteingebirge 1789-1848 (1994)

Stephan Dillemuth – Selected Films
LUX 28, 28 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London E8
Exhibition: 18 – 28 September 2008. Opening hours: 12 - 6, Wednesday  
- Saturday
Free entry

A rare opportunity to see the recent films of Munich-based artist  
Stephan Dillemuth presented for the first time with English  
subtitles. Curated by Anja Kirschner.

Stephan Dillemuth is an artist who sees art as a tool for artistic  
research and critical reflection on the circumstances of contemporary  
life. His inquiry into recent changes in the idea of the public  
sphere takes place against the backdrop of our globalised, localised  
and fragmented publics. Considering the impact of ‘lifestyle’ as a  
new ideology of self-fulfilment and liberation, Stephan Dillemuth has  
investigated the German Lebensreform movements at the turn of the  
19th to the 20th century.

Colliding performance footage, TV documentary, archive material and  
pirated costume drama, Dillemuth's shrewd and often darkly humorous  
films evince the seriousness of his research and the deftness with  
which he handles historical material. He avoids didactic explanations  
or direct comparisons with the present, his work settles in the gap  
between a contemporary and an historical reading.


Opening event: Thursday 18 September 7pm
Screening of Lichtmenschen im Sumpf der Sonne – Studien zur  
Lebensreform (2002) (Sunpeople in the Slush of the Light - Studies on  
the Reform of Life) followed by Q&A with Stephan Dillemuth. ADMISSION  
FREE To book a place email salon at lux.org.uk

Lichtmenschen im Sumpf der Sonne – Studien zur Lebensreform
'In Germany, around the turn of the century, a number of groups were  
formed that can be subsumed under the term 'Lebensreform' (Life  
Reform). These part utopian, revolutionary, reactionary and reformist  
approaches characterised the most varied attempts to break free from  
the Empire of the day: the nationalistic, capitalistic and monolithic  
Wilhelminian Reich. In view of the development of 'multitudes' of  
parallel conceptions of life, the Life Reform movements were  
certainly predecessors of today's 'escapist' constructions of  
identity, formed via lifestyle conceptions. At the time, some of  
these approaches lent a sense of 'metaphysical depth' to the arising  
National Socialism. Other groups were, on the contrary, persecuted by  
the society of the Third Reich, and incorporated or forced into line,  
which again produced another monolithic homogeneity.'
'The video that Stephan Dillemuth attempted to make about these  
matters was bound to fail in the face of their very complexity.  
Instead of presenting a refined and finished product, he confronts us  
with the assembled rubble of his investigation... a performance?'


Double bill screening: Saturday 20 September 4pm
Screening of Elbsandsteingebirge 1789-1848 (DE, 1994, 54mins) and  
Gesetzt nämlich, dies wäre wahr, wäre es damit auch schon  
wünschenswert? (DE, 1998, 62mins) (Assuming then, this would be true,  
would that make it desirable also? - A Video about Richard Wagner and  
his Circle) followed by Q&A with Stephan Dillemuth. ADMISSION FREE To  
book a place email salon at lux.org.uk

Elbsandsteingebirge 1789-184
The bizarre landscape of the Elbsandstein mountains south of Dresden,  
served as the repository for the motives of nearly all German  
Romantics. Their paintings have shaped our romantic view of the time  
between the French Revolution and the March Revolution in Germany. In  
a journey through images, movies and texts, and a trip in the  
Elbsandstein mountains themselves we see ourselves confronted with  
our own projections: Was the Romantic political? Or were the politics  
romantic?

Gesetzt nämlich, dies wäre wahr, wäre es damit auch schon  
wünschenswert?”
Assuming then, this would be true, would that make it desirable also?  
- A Video about Richard Wagner and his Circle
'Richard Wagner was a despot, anti-Semite and racist. Despite these  
warnings Stephan Dillemuth attempts to find Rheingold in the sediment  
of a bygone century. Instead the failed revolutionary Wagner  
introduces him to a nationalistic culture and the the musty climate  
of the Wilhelminian era.

www.lux28.org.uk



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