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Exhibition view
Clemens von Wedemeyer
The Fourth Wall
Jan 23–Apr 22, 2010
Jan 23–Apr 22, 2010
After its premiere at the Barbican Art Gallery London (The Curve), KOW is the second venue of Clemens von Wedemeyer’s most recent production, “The Fourth Wall”. Coinciding with the Berlinale and the Transmediale, the project of this Berlin-based artist and filmmaker negotiates the illusionistic nature of the authentic. This is Wedemeyer’s first solo exhibition in a German gallery.
The centre of this extensive exhibition project is a historical incident around a group of contemporary cavemen: the “Tasaday”, a tribe that was discovered in the Philippine rain forest in 1971. Western media declared its discovery a sensation. Apparently, the 26 members of this tribe were still living in a Stone Age, unaware of the modern world. However, already in the eighties, doubt arose as to the authenticity of this discovery which was soon suspected to be a swindle. Unquestionably, the news coverage and the photos of these “peaceful savages” have shaped the Philippines’ image in the international media. This was much to the pleasure of Ferdinand Marcos' government, who discouraged any serious anthropological research within the country, but was always eager to please the media. Was the Tasaday story true? If so, was this tribe the prey of hungry western journalists? Or was this a hoax, staged to divert attention away from the Marco regime? The West’s projection of a jungle paradise?
“The Fourth Wall”, a notion used in theatre and introduced by Diderot (Discours sur la poésie dramatique, 1758), refers to an imaginary divide between stage and audience. This concept enables actors to appear as authentic, as if they were “amongst themselves”. At the same time, the audience is made to believe that the stage act is “real”. In his project for KOW, von Wedemeyer applies the notion of the fourth wall to anthropology as well as to photography and film – disciplines and media that have authorised themselves to adequately and authentically describe humankind and the conditions of life. This power, too, builds on the assumption of a fourth wall: a wall that is set up both by the audience’s desire for an illusion of reality as well as by the willingness of art and social sciences to deliver such an illusion.
In his nine films and interviews, Clemens von Wedemeyer constructs and punctures such fourth walls. These both create and shatter the illusion that we are able to distinguish between images of “others” that are real and images that are merely images. It is an investigation into notions of representation and belief. Yet these works also look into the short time span of a “first contact” – be it the first contact between anthropologists and an isolated group of individuals, between actors and their audience, between the visitors and the works in this exhibition.
Funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
Text and photos: Alexander Koch
"The Fourth Wall" has travelled to
FONDAZIONE GALLERIA CIVICA TRENTO
ST. PAUL ST. GALLERY AUCKLAND
DUNEDIN PUBLIC ART GALLERY
Excerpts of the exhibition were shown at
CAMERA AUSTRIA GRAZ
GALERIE DER STADT SINDELFINGEN
ART FILM BASEL
4. FOTOFESTIVAL MANNHEIM, LUDWIGSHAFEN, HEIDELBERG
PALAIS DE TOKYO PARIS
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ART OSAKA
ARCO MADRID
The centre of this extensive exhibition project is a historical incident around a group of contemporary cavemen: the “Tasaday”, a tribe that was discovered in the Philippine rain forest in 1971. Western media declared its discovery a sensation. Apparently, the 26 members of this tribe were still living in a Stone Age, unaware of the modern world. However, already in the eighties, doubt arose as to the authenticity of this discovery which was soon suspected to be a swindle. Unquestionably, the news coverage and the photos of these “peaceful savages” have shaped the Philippines’ image in the international media. This was much to the pleasure of Ferdinand Marcos' government, who discouraged any serious anthropological research within the country, but was always eager to please the media. Was the Tasaday story true? If so, was this tribe the prey of hungry western journalists? Or was this a hoax, staged to divert attention away from the Marco regime? The West’s projection of a jungle paradise?
“The Fourth Wall”, a notion used in theatre and introduced by Diderot (Discours sur la poésie dramatique, 1758), refers to an imaginary divide between stage and audience. This concept enables actors to appear as authentic, as if they were “amongst themselves”. At the same time, the audience is made to believe that the stage act is “real”. In his project for KOW, von Wedemeyer applies the notion of the fourth wall to anthropology as well as to photography and film – disciplines and media that have authorised themselves to adequately and authentically describe humankind and the conditions of life. This power, too, builds on the assumption of a fourth wall: a wall that is set up both by the audience’s desire for an illusion of reality as well as by the willingness of art and social sciences to deliver such an illusion.
In his nine films and interviews, Clemens von Wedemeyer constructs and punctures such fourth walls. These both create and shatter the illusion that we are able to distinguish between images of “others” that are real and images that are merely images. It is an investigation into notions of representation and belief. Yet these works also look into the short time span of a “first contact” – be it the first contact between anthropologists and an isolated group of individuals, between actors and their audience, between the visitors and the works in this exhibition.
Funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
Text and photos: Alexander Koch
"The Fourth Wall" has travelled to
FONDAZIONE GALLERIA CIVICA TRENTO
ST. PAUL ST. GALLERY AUCKLAND
DUNEDIN PUBLIC ART GALLERY
Excerpts of the exhibition were shown at
CAMERA AUSTRIA GRAZ
GALERIE DER STADT SINDELFINGEN
ART FILM BASEL
4. FOTOFESTIVAL MANNHEIM, LUDWIGSHAFEN, HEIDELBERG
PALAIS DE TOKYO PARIS
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ART OSAKA
ARCO MADRID