JULIAN ROSEFELDT - WHEN WE ARE GONE
The Völklinger Hütte World Cultural Heritage Site will host the institutional European première of Julian Rosefeldt’s celebrated new film installation, EUPHORIA, along with a major exhibition of the artist’s work. Rosefeldt is famed for the visual opulence and virtuoso choreography of his film installations.
JULIAN ROSEFELDT: WHEN WE ARE GONE presents seven of his (often large-scale) works from the last twenty years in specially chosen locations in and under the blower hall, which ranges across more than 6,000 square metres and features gigantic machines and flywheels. The interaction of art and industrial culture here reveals a breathtaking panorama of the Anthropocene Epoch. A look back at our past and present – WHEN WE ARE GONE.
EUPHORIA
An artistic tour de force journeying through the history of capitalism, EUPHORIA (2016–2022) asks why there still seems be no alternative to this economic system today. Drummers keep time and a youth choir sings, transforming the text collage of quotations ranging from Adorno, Virginie Despentes and Einstein to the Rolling Stones and Snoop Dogg into a veritable film opera.
A Park Avenue Armory Production
EUPHORIA
by Julian Rosefeldt
Commissioned and Produced by Park Avenue Armory
Co-Commissioned by Holland Festival, Ruhrtriennale Festival of the Arts, and Rising
In Association with Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte
Title: Euphoria
Writer, Director, Producer: Julian Rosefeldt
Music composed by Samy Moussa
Additional music by Cassie Kinoshi
Performed by the Singers of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus
and Terri Lyne Carrington, Peter Erskine, Yissy Garcia, Eric Harland, Antonio Sanchez
with Giancarlo Esposito, Virginia Newcomb, Ayesha Jordan, Kate Strong, Jeff Wood, Erik Hansen, Tim Williams, Jeff Burrell, Robert Bronzi, Rocio Rodriguez-Inniss, Dora Zygouri, Esther Odumade, Tia Murrell, Asa Ali, Luis Rosefeldt, Richard Siegal, Nena Sorzano, Corey Scott-Gilbert, Jared Brown and the Voice of Cate Blanchett
PENUMBRA (2019–2022) – another institutional European premiere – looks into an uncertain future. Moving extremely slowly, we come across a new planet, fly over its desert landscapes and dive through the treetops of a wooded oasis into slow-motion images of an ecstatic rave. Is this humanity’s last hurrah? An apocalyptic vision?
IN THE LAND OF DROUGHT (2015–2017) anticipates the theme of PENUMBRA but is set closer to the present day. This captivating installation is a powerfully meditative elegy to our man-made age: drone footage shows hazmat-clad creatures amid the remnants of our civilisation, represented the North African film sets of the ancient world and the spoil heaps of the Ruhr.
Shot in Westhafen, Berlin, THE SWAP (2015) appears at first to be an action-packed gangster film. However, the constant repetition of the film clichés of suitcase swapping, gun rituals and smoking car tyres points to the omnipresence of criminality and the factual absurdity of the impenetrable financial transactions of global commerce.
DEEP GOLD (2013/2014) continues the tradition of Luis Buñuel’s surrealist films. A male protagonist loses his way in a bizarrely allusive world of lust and desire, where feminism has already triumphed. The revival of 1920s’ Berlin is utopian yet also evokes a sense of danger, all to the soundtrack of tangos, Peaches and a Wagner aria.
The title of UNKNOWN SOLDIER (2007) refers directly to monuments all over the world in memory of anonymous soldiers, but it subverts this allusion to create a cinematic anti-monument. Lightning flashes reveal a man in uniform in falling into a void. In view of the current reality of war in Europe, Rosefeldt's UNKNOWN SOLDIER is tragically topical.
In the film and sound collage MEINE KUNST KRIEGT HIER ZU FRESSEN – HOMMAGE À MAX BECKMANN (2002), historical footage of the battles of World War I, the variété shows of the Roaring Twenties, the air battles of World War II, and the city of New York serve as motifs for the work of the artist. This “homage” also evokes the German “station drama” of the first half of the twentieth century.
Media Gallery
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Das Saarbrücker Gespräch mit Julian Rosefeldt | SR2 KulturRadio
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Videokunst in der Völklinger Hütte | ZDF heute journal
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Werkschau zu Julian Rosefeldt | Deutschlandfunk Kultur
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Werkschau von Julian Rosefeldt Filmkunst in der Völklinger Hütte | tagesschau (no more available)
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Neue Ausstellung von Julian Rosefeldt im Weltkulturerbe | SR aktueller bericht
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Spektakuläre Filminstallationen - Julian Rosefeldt in der Völklinger Hütte | SWR. KUNSCHT!
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Julian Rosefeldt: "When we are gone" | SR 3
Press comments
„Selten kam Weltuntergangskino so großartig und intelligent daher. Neun Monate lang im Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte.“
Sabine Willkop, SWR Kunscht, 8.12.2022
„Großes Kino – im wahrsten Sinn des Wortes. Kunst mit viel Gehalt, trotzdem opulent und für jeden begreif- und erlebbar. Was will man mehr?“
Barbara Grech, SR 3, 8.12.2022
„Zum zweiten Mal widmet sich ein Großevent in der Völklinger Hütte der Filmkunst. Anspruchsvoll ist die Werkschau von Julian Rosefeldt – und mitreißend.“
Cathrin Elss-Seringhaus, Saarbrücker Zeitung, 9.12.2022
Impressions from the exhibition
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MEINE KUNST KRIEGT HIER ZU FRESSEN – HOMMAGE À MAX BECKMANN
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MEINE KUNST KRIEGT HIER ZU FRESSEN – HOMMAGE À MAX BECKMANN
© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze -
MEINE KUNST KRIEGT HIER ZU FRESSEN – HOMMAGE À MAX BECKMANN
© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze -
MEINE KUNST KRIEGT HIER ZU FRESSEN – HOMMAGE À MAX BECKMANN
© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze -
THE SWAP
© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze -
EUPHORIA
© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze -
EUPHORIA
© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze -
EUPHORIA
© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze -
IN THE LAND OF DROUGHT
© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze -
PENUMBRA
© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
Impressions from the opening
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
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© Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze
Führungen
Public guided tours through the exhibition
Saturday 3 pm / Sunday 11.30 am
(from 26.12.22) included in the entrance fee
Special tours for groups
(max. 30 persons, about 1.5 hrs.) 110 € plus reduced admission of 15 € per person
Registration at visit@voelklinger-huette.org
Guided tours can also be booked before 10 a.m. for schools and groups.
The World Cultural Heritage Site at the Völklingen Ironworks is largely barrier-free.