MARKUS SELG
Pietà
31. 8. — 15. 9. 2010
Svit, Praha
Stefanikova 43a
150 00 Praha 5
www.svitpraha.org
Selgs multi-faceted practice includes painting, sculpture, digital prints
and the moving image. Selg’s imagery is characterized by density. Selg
compresses the sci-fi and the classical, the primitive and the virtual,
to evoke complex other-wordly places where the dramatic forces of
nature reflect the state of man. Beginning with the creation of a fictional
narrative, Selg’s practice works along two strands: the individual work of
art, which stands always in and of itself, and the Gesamtkunstwerk; the
Total Work of Art, which stages the individual work to play a role within
a larger, all-encompassing production. Often inhabiting the form of
the opera, the Gesamtkunstwerk is orchestrated by Selg using roving
spotlights, sound and projection to create highly symbolic experiential
rooms.
In keeping with Wagner’s formulation of the Gesamkunstwerk as the
clearest expression of a folk tale abstracted from the particular to
become a universal humanist fable, Selg deals with archetypes of
the collective unconscious. He infiltrates ruins of the distant past-
Babylonian, Egyptian and primitive cultures- with modernity’s future-
orientated remains to fuse them into intensive spatial situations and
mental images. In their cumulative states these installations are frozen
world theatres examining the scenario of humanity and its myths of
creation and eschatology.
For his exhibition at SVIT, Selg stages the encounter of two of his
major works, which deal with the motifs of sacrifice, love, death and
resurrection. His sculpture „Pietà“ from 2009 and his film „Schicksal“
from 2010.
The Pieta, one of the strongest images of Christian iconography,
unites the states of desperation and hope in an unrivalled way. As in
Michelangelo‘s ‚Pietà Rondanini‘, Selg presents the dying figure standing
rather than in the traditional horizontal position. Through this break with
the classical composition, Selg brings the image of mother and son,
closer to the one of lovers. A universal and fragile monument for love
and death.
„Schicksal“. Selg’s first film proper. Shot in the mountains of the Czech
Republic where the artist lived for a period in a primitive hut carving
wooden figures. The film depicts the heroic tale of an artist (played by
Selg himself) who trudges through crisp white tundra, falls to his face in
exhaustion and then miraculously rouses himself back to life. In hypnotic
landscapes, following the motifs of searching and the state of being lost,
Selg shows in astonishing beauty the dangers and powers of the artist as
an creator.
Markus Selg, Schicksal, Filmstill, 2010
Markus Selg (1974 Singen, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Selg was
founding member and part of the Akademie Isotrop (1996 - 2000) and
co-editor of Isotrop magazine. He was the recent scholarship holder of
Kunstzeitraum, PIN, Freunde der Pinakothek in Munich (2005). Selg has
had solo shows at the Vilma Gold, London (2010), MeetFactory, Prague
(2009), Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin (2009). In 2009 he organized
a collaborative installation with Jannis Kounellis and Werner Herzog at
the b-05, Montabaur and was included in ‘Heaven’, 2nd Athens Biennale.
Currently he is artist-in-residence at the MeetFactory, Prague. He’s
a founder and director of the publisher Possible Press.
