Prophetic Complaints

until 26.03.2023

Curated by Annette Hans

Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst e.V.
Teerhof 21, 28199 Bremen

Events
Thu, 16.03., 7 pm
Guided tour

Sat, 18.03., 6 pm
Eau Pernice: Backward Singing Performance

In cooperation with Blaumeier-Atelier, Bremen

In his mostly filmic works, Dudu Quintanilha explores the act of performing and the ways in which it relates to ideas about how to live together. Performance is not necessarily understood here as an artistic practice, but rather—in line with Erving Goffmann and Hannah Arendt—as the moment in which individuals become part of a public society.

A new video work is being created for the exhibition in cooperation with artists and performers from the Blaumeier-Atelier Bremen. The group used techniques of listening, observing, and performing in order to explore the prophetic and imaginative potential of complaints.

Based on individual life stories and personal experiences within social and institutional life, Quintanilha’s project also deals with wider social contexts and debates. The questions raised about the public roles that people perform are especially relevant in light of the increased excitement and escalation in public speaking today as well as the division between “the” public and our smaller subjective context.

In Quintanilha’s projects, speech and behavior oscillate between what is officially desirable and undesirable, leaving space for potential and imaginative possibilities. His works are often created in close collaboration with established groups of people and address complex social relationships and vulnerabilities. What makes his stories so vivid is the way in which he refrains from portraying what is supposedly essential and instead finds other forms of aesthetic presence.

Dudu Quintanilha studied audiovisual arts at the IUNA in Buenos Aires and the Städelschule in Frankfurt. His work has been shown most recently at Galerie DREI (Cologne, 2021), Kunstraum Riehen (Basel, 2021), Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen (Düsseldorf, 2019), Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, (Buenos Aires, 2019), and Kanal Centre Pompidou (Brussels, 2018).

Special thanks to
Dorothe Burhop, Dustin Cwiertnia, Nazli Kiziltepe, Cornelia Koch, Natascha Merckens, Hella Müller, Uta Pagenkemper, Leonard Ramm, Denise Stehmeier, Ada Helene Weber, Barbara Weste

Support
Waldemar Koch Stiftung, Bremen