Olaf
Breuning (* 1970,
lives in Zurich and New York)
We are
pleased to present Olaf Breuning’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Nicola von Senger. The core of this exhibition is
Breuning’s video installation “Home,” which is his most ambitious, elaborate,
and impressive video project yet. Breuning acted as writer, director, producer,
costume and set designer, location scout, composer, editor, and cameraman. The
installation also lends its name to the new monograph “Home” (jrp | ringier) on
Breuning’s complete works.
“Home” is a
double projection on separate screens. One shows the protagonist in the role of
a narrator confined to a strange hotel room in black and white, while the other
shows him traveling the world in colorful, non-sequential episodes. It seems
apparent that the action of the color projection emanates from the mind of the
narrator, whereby image and soundtrack may carry over from one screen to the
other. The protagonist appears in different roles (as a homeless person, a
cowboy, a tourist, etc.) searching for a home in many diverse environments. In
a dowdy wild west scene, he is described as a “culture hopper” who has “traveled all around trying to find
the reason why he don’t fit in around.” The very first scene, where the
protagonist dreams of himself as a zombie, already suggests his problematic
relationship with the world. In such “naturally” exotic locales as the Machu
Picchu, or in such “culturally” exotic locales as the Venetian-themed Venetian
Hotel in Las Vegas, the settings are always subjected to the logic of consumer
culture, which makes places resemble less themselves than their representations
in travel brochures and the media. In this sense, the dreamlike-zombiesque
effectively describes the whole world as somewhat unreal; it is essentially
made of props. The hotelroom of the black and white projection has similar
qualities. It is by definition a temporary residence, a liminal space that is
neither here nor there. The narrator’s uneasy and disoriented movement in this
room, its temporariness, and its cacophonous décor all indicate the
unfamiliarity of this space. However, the pseudo-victorian furnishings and faux
art nouveau details serve as a fitting point of arrival, precisely because
nothing seems to fit together, for a traveler who fails to “fit in around”
anywhere else. This postmodern space of transit, which joins disparate cultural
products and separates people from the outside world, points toward the lack of
community and the dissolution of identity, toward the erosion of the hallmarks
of being-at-home.
