Der malende Mund
The Painting Mouth
La bouche qui peint
CR 58. Year 1978
Performance ist bei Gerz Kritik am Bild, an der Scheinwirklichkeit der reproduzierenden Medien wie an der autonomen Wirklichkeit des Kunstwerks. Sie untergräbt den Glauben an die Verläßlichkeit des Bildes, indem sie das Bild auf den Vorgang, auf die Performance zurückführt, der es ursprünglich entstammt und in die es ständig einbezogen ist.
Erich Franz 1981
He turns the video apparatus against itself, questioning its ability to reproduce reality.
Lous Jonas 2015
Categories
Keywords
Performance
Video camera, monitor, brush, photographic opaque
Duration approx. 30 minutes
Jochen Gerz and a monitor complement one another in various different configurations (portrait, foetus, chair, birth, fist closed in greeting and a Nazi salute). These are recorded by a camera and played back on a monitor (closed circuit). The performance ends with Jochen Gerz crawling like a snail with the monitor on his back through the audience toward the camera at the other end of the room. He applies photographic opaque to the lens with a brush held in his mouth, thus obscuring his own image.
See the manuscript of the same title (657) as well as the video documentation (680).
Realisations
Wien 1978. Genève, 18.1.1979. Bonn 1979
Bibliography
I: Bremen 1978, p. 12. Luzern 1979, pp. 84-85. Paris 1979a, p. 26. Bielefeld 1981, pp. 14, 52-53, 112-114. Paris 1981a, p. 302. Zürich 1981, p. 226. Berlin 1983b, p. 65. Bielefeld 1985, p. 205. Zürich 1988, pp. 254-255. Düsseldorf 1991, p. 226. Berlin 1994, p. 60. Paris 1994a, p. 148
II: Fritsch 1978, p. 5. Hoffmann 1978. Pohlen 1978. Glusberg 1, 1979, p. 42. Glusberg 2, 1979, p. 35. Red. 6, 1979, p. 17. Red. 7, 1979. Battcock 1980, p. 18. Red. 3, 1980. Red. 4, 1980. Cerni 1981, p. 13. Red. 12, 1981, p. 61. Kisters 1990, p. 142. Fricke 1994. Jonas 2015, p. 25
III: Gravel 1978, p. 50. Haase 1981, p. 52. Rogendörfer 1990, p. 230
IV: Katalog Artistes et Professeurs Invités 1987, p. 34
V: Molderings 1984, p. 175. Molderings 1985, p. 206. Wolf 1992, pp. 47-48, 196-197. Osswald 1994, pp. 69, 79. Frieling 1997, pp. 203 - 205, Media Art Net 2000
Documentation
Video, 19:23 min (Galerie Ecart/Centre d'art contemporain, Genève)
Vidéo les Beaux Jours, la Maison de l’Image, Strasbourg and imai, inter media art institute, Düsseldorf
Exhibitions of the documentation
Paris 1981. Zürich 1981. Bonn 1982. Zürich 1988. Berlin 1994