Left: “Angst II”; right: Frances Chiaverini. Both images by Nadine Fraczkowski, Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof
September in Berlin is a month for art fairs, exhibition openings, and galleries cracking their doors to the light after a summer hiatus. The city once again becomes filled with art tourists.
Amid this hype, crystallising a type of hyperbolic exhaustion after a summer dominated by Berlin Biennale reviews, counter criticisms and your newest summer residency programme, Anne Imhof’s “Angst II” landed somewhere on everybody’s social calendars. Suddenly, everyone grew excited to see what the sequel to “Angst” – which won the Nationalpreise last year – could bring.
Eliza Douglas and Mickey Mahar in “Angst II” by Anne Imhof, Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, photo by Nadine Fraczkowski
Deconstructing fashion and dance
Anne Imhof’s ongoing variations of performative actions are something like Xavier LeRoy meets Goethe meets a fucked up teenager high school party. Her performances often involve long, slow, jerked-out movements, typical of high art performance dance that can send the impatient viewer running and scoffing. The performers wear normcore designed outfits that fit easily into the repertoire of Hood by Air, a New York designer with conceptual street aesthetics. Her performative situations often have no dialogue and offer no speeches from the performers, but involve a series of gestures that unfold in time and space. For instance, “Angst II” deconstructs several gestures including the catwalk sashay and and mosh pit dancing. One highlight involves the performers sinking towards the ground, in one synchronised motion. The group sways their bodies together while singing a tune about tragedy.
Franziska Aigner and Eliza Douglas in “Angst II” by Anne Imhof, Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, photo by Nadine Fraczkowski
Imhof’s Gesamtkunswerk
“Angst II” was the only Gesamtkunstwerk present within Berlin Art Week. A term developed by Richard Wagner, Gesamtkunstwerk is a work of art that spans sound, set design, acting, choreography, visuals, and concept. It is a total synthesis of media, sound and theatrics, literally meaning a total work of art.
The performance begins with a woman walking on a tightrope. Music swells into the large hall of Hamburger Bahnhof, a former train station turned museum. The hall is filled with mist and smoke. As the tightrope-walker moves into the space laterally, six bodies emerge from the mist. They are all dressed similarly, in baggy white pants, athletic tops, and exercise shirts. Towards the sides of the exhibition space are other performers who simply sit, do nothing, or lounge on sleeping bags. Towards the walls are soft drink cans and red bulls. The setting is extremely austere, and there aren’t any colours, only two circular staircases painted white and made of welded metal. Occasionally, a performer climbs the staircase and lounges at the top, perhaps too tired to jump off the top or even feign committing suicide.
Left: Frances Chiaverini, Franziska Aigner, Eliza Douglas, Josh Johnson, Emma Daniel, Katja Cheraneva, Mickey Mahar, Enad Marouf and Billy Bultheel, right: Mickey Mahar in “Angst II” by Anne Imhof, Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, photo by Nadine Fraczkowski
Part Berghain, part sad teenage art joke
This is the environment of the entire performance, an artwork that lies somewhere between Berghain and a sad teenage art joke. The whole piece is extremely operatic, stretched out across four hours. Scenarios repeat, however. Sometimes one catches moments of beauty, like the slow crowd surfing one dancer makes, gliding across the mist. The motion is reminiscent of Christ’s apotheosis, but even as the scenario approaches divinity, there still exists an atmosphere of heathenry. At one point, an androgynous performer, breasts wrapped in a sports band, lies backwards as a drone flies over her body. Or three female performers spit sunflower seeds from their perch onto a dancer slowly walking underneath. In the final crescendo, the performers run back and forth, transcribing the space in an anti-sacrificial manner, all before striking their best girl band pose and giving the audience the middle finger.
The performance will leave viewers either walking out after five minutes in search of a real nightclub experience, or it will transfix you, luring you into the siren song.
“Angst II” by Anne Imhof is showing at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof until 25 September 2016
Facebook events