Stefan Panhans and Eske Schlüters, Förderpreise Video 2008
curated by Petra Reichensperger

How are identities formed, and how can they be understood or even transformed? Stefan Panhans and Eske Schlüters, winners of the 2008 Arthur Boskamp Foundation Video Grant, question different models of identity in their work, emphasizing their enmeshment with social relationships and psychic constellations, such as they occur at real, symbolic and imaginary levels. To this end, both artists employ the acts of showing and speaking.

Stefan Panhans is interested in the contradictory tensions between egocentric individualism and surrender to belief systems, such as the free market proposes them. He explores this interest in videos, photography and collages. With enigmatic humor, characters and settings alternate between real and dream worlds and parody the economy’s influence on the invention of the self. Individuality becomes a commodity. Minimalist shots and staccato monologues by the main characters are hugely suggestive of the tireless work that goes into social roles. In Panhans’ new film “If a Store Clerk Gave Me Too Much Change”, the magic words are “you must find YOURSELF, your inner source of power”.

In editing together her video projections, Eske Schlüters experiments primarily with found material from both feature and documentary films. She plays the “re” as it is found in reproduction, resampling and reenactment – as strategy, as subversion and as a means to understanding. “After the Rehearsal” is based on a film on the filming of Chantal Ackerman’s feature “Jeanne Dielmann”. The selected making-of scenes show the main actress rehearsing her part for the camera. Beyond that, the artist surveys the potential roles, stagings and performances in various living and working situations in an installation consisting of twenty alu-dibond posters.