Triptych of screen shots from [redacted] 24/7
Performance still from Diderot in Petersburg
operetta by ,Bruch'- at Theater Neumarkt, Zuruch, Jan 2024 > full documentation
Important: this is the work of ~10 people plus costumiers, technicians, administrators, in which I participate as performer and composer
In search of witty entertainment, the Russian tsarina Catherine II invites the French philosopher Denis Diderot to visit her in St. Petersburg. Fascinated by the erotic and financial charisma of the legendary despotess, the prominent writer accepts. However, not everyone is pleased about his arrival. In particular the court scholar Lagetschnikoff, a Machiavellian upstart, fears for the loss of his privileges. Diderot raves about freedom, Lagetschnikoff vows hostility. Under the direction of Catherine, a dangerous spiral of intrigue and manipulation unfolds, confronting Diderot’s joyful humanity with the otherworldly of political power. Что делать? Que faire? What to do?
Diderot in Petersburg (1873) by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is an erotic-burlesque novella that contains a ‘dialectic of enlightenment’ avant la lettre. The fictionalised confrontation between philosopher and empress leads down into the torture chambers of anti-modernism where the obligatory whip is unpacked to exorcise the philosopher’s arrogance. Instead of ‘freedom, equality and fraternity’: ‘orthodoxy, autocracy and nationalism’. 250 years after Diderot’s historic journey of 1773–74, ,Bruch‘- undertakes a counter reading of the scandalous text and stages it as an allegorical play in the guise of a contemporary operetta. Between Russian Hardstyle and French Cold Wave, a political diorama and sensual laboratory opens up in which the ecstatic potential of laughter is explored – ‘rira bien qui rira le dernier!’
Press:
Ueli Bernays, Westlicher Geist trifft russische Seele, NZZ, 12 January 2024.
Leonard Haverkamp, Zarin sucht Lover, Nachtkritik, 12 January 2024.
Fabienne Nägeli, Kuriose Verwechslungskomödie – das Theater Neumarkt inszeniert die Operette «Diderot in Petersburg» als gelungenen Kommentar auf unsere Gegenwart, SRF, 15 January 2024.
Valeria Heintges, Optik, Schwung und Schau, Theater heute, March 2024.
Photo credit: Philip Frowein
Installation view, [redacted solo show], conducted under great secrecy at or near prestigious secret location in London, sometime in 2022.
Some content withheld for discrete reasons
Installation view: IMG_20220520_140644494.MP (left) and IMG_20201003_010304 (right)
42 x 52cm double sided Direct Print on 3mm Dibond
from [redacted solo show], London, 2022
Detail views of beer-chimneys; apprêt gris, texture paint, food-safe coating, aluminium can; edition of 20
Sample spread from [redacted], 2022
Exhibition catalogue for [redacted solo show] with catalogue essay by [redacted], 40 pages
Issued to coincide with the Artists’ Self Publishing Fair, Conway Hall, London, July 2022
Installation view: contributory research with beer-chimneys
numbered exemplars as relational work (bar)
from [redacted solo show], London, 2022
Installation view: spontaneous remixing and enlarging the boundaries of the work with materials on hand during the private view [unattributed].
from [redacted solo show], London, 2022
Still from Time Piece, 66min performance with five channel sound tracking celestial movement, in collaboration with Nikhil Vettukattil
from Between IV: The Secret of Futility at Kunstverein München, Nov 2022
photo credit: Constanza Melendez
Clip from Time Piece, Kunstverein München, Nov 2022
Opposite: process image, model and solution
Activation of Hermès, leather, stainless steel, sterling silver, online auction
from group exhibition This house is not a home at Lothringer 13 Halle, Munich, July 2020
with thanks to leather technician Junichi Suguira
exhibited with companion video work The Parasite, a video essay on authenticity
