03.02. – 10.03.2005
Julian Rosefeldt (GER)
“The Soundmaker“
Solo exhibition at Arndt & Partner, Zurich

PRESS RELEASE
We are pleased to announce the foundation of Arndt & Partner AG in Zurich and the opening of our new gallery space. In the 10th year of Arndt & Partner we seek to expand our radius of communication. On 150 square metres space, located at Lessingstrasse 5, we shall present our gallery artists, who are not yet represented in Switzerland, as well as using it as a platform for younger positions.
The first exhibition will be a double premiere: the film and photo works by Julian Rosefeldt will be shown in Switzerland for the first time. This show also announces the inclusion of the Berlin-based artist into our gallery program.
In his first solo exhibition at Arndt & Partner, Zurich, Julian Rosefeldt presents a selection of film stills as well as his film installation "The Soundmaker" - the first part of his recent film series "Trilogy of Failure".
Similar to his earlier works, the films from "Trilogy of Failure" are conceived as dipty- or triptychons, for which the individual projections are precisely synchronised with one another. The viewer is immersed into a cinematic scenery in which the narratives of Julian Rosefeldt's elaborately finished super 16 mm films unfold in loops without beginning or end. "Trilogy of Failure" explores the structures and routines that organize our everyday existence.
The installation "The Soundmaker" is presented as three channel projection. Shot from two different camera angles, the two outer film sequences observe a sound maker at work in his cramped, improvised studio. The projection in the middle seemingly depicts the scene, for which the sounds are being created. The protagonist of this film sequence, who is identical with the sound maker, is assembling the entire furniture as well as every item he can find in his studio apartment into a single pile in the middle of the room.
The assumption that one was watching a filmmaker in the process of producing the soundtrack for his own film becomes uncertain as both protagonists suddenly leave their rooms, withdrawing for a short moment from the camera's sight. It seems as if they changed place. Is the sound maker now finding himself in the apartment, while the other character is in the sound studio? Why does the person in the apartment move all the items and furnishings from the meticulously stacked pile back to their original position? One begins to ponder, whether the actions determine the sound or whether it may be the other way around. Increasingly, the familiar changes into the surreal.
Julian Rosefeldt employs the technique of the swaying or slowly forth and back moving camera. Furthermore he avoids any narrative cuts, thus achieving the impression that his protagonists are inescapably trapped in the absurd cycle of their monotonous activities. "The Soundmaker" as well as "Stunned Man" (the second part of "Trilogy of Failure"), from which some of the exhibited film stills originate, can be read as philosophy in moving pictures. Julian Rosefeldt's films display a satirical humour and a great sensitivity for ambiguity as they revitalize existentialist interpretations of the sisyphos metaphor and critically reflect upon the filmic medium.
Julian Rosefeldt, born in 1965 in Munich, Germany, lives and works in Berlin. He presented solo exhibitions in renowned institutions, such as the KW - Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2004), the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead /Newcastle, Great Britain (2004), the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2002), as well as the Herzliya Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel (2001). Furthermore, he participated in numerous group exhibitions, e.g. the 26th São Paulo Biennale (2004), at the O.K Centrum für Gegenwartskunst, Linz, Austria (2004), the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria (2004), the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2002), the Kunsthalle Vienna (2001), the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2000), the Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (1999), or the P.S.1, New York (1998).