Dirimart is pleased to announce Julian Rosefeldt’s first solo exhibition in Turkey. For his first extensive presentation in Istanbul, Dirimart opens both galleries, in Nişantaşı and Dolapdere, to the films and photographs of Berlin-based artist Julian Rosefeldt, who has been celebrated worldwide for his film installation Manifesto (2015), a reenactment of historical avant-garde manifestos by artist groups such as the Dadaists, the Situationists, and Futurists, featuring Australian actress Cate Blanchett in thirteen different roles. In his films and photographs, Rosefeldt creates a highly aesthetic universe, with explicit formal references to the history of cinema and painting, but at the same time dealing with important social and political subjects such as totalitarianism, ecology, homeland, and migration, all treated in an ongoing playful dialogue with pop culture.
In his meditative installation In the Land of Drought (43’, 2015–17), shown on a large screen in Dirimart Dolapdere, Rosefeldt looks back from an imagined future upon the post–Anthropocene: the aftermath of significant human influence on Earth. An army of scientists appears to conduct archaeological investigations at the remnants of civilization after humanity has made itself extinct. Shot entirely using a drone in Morocco, and the Ruhr area of Germany, Rosefeldt’s images hover meditatively over desolated landscapes and ruins—abandoned film sets close to the Moroccan Atlas Mountains and the remains of industrialization. Completely different in form and rhythm from the linear film version of Manifesto, also presented in Dolapdere together with a series of photo works, In the Land of Drought evokes—without any dialogue—a vision of a future exodus of humanity from our devastated planet.
Playing with the black-and-white esthetic of silent movies, Deep Gold (18’, 2013–14) is shot in a film studio, with complicated camera movements and a sophisticated dramatic choreography. Conceived as a possible continuation of the legendary film L’Age d’Or (1930) written by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel, it is a visual poem, a surrealist trip back to the Berlin of the wild 1920s, characterized by artistic avant-garde, sexual freedom and political apocalypse. Nine photographic prints of the film stills accompany the film installation at Dirimart Nişantaşı.
