Reynold Reynolds
The Lost
September 7–October 6, 2013
Volkspaleis (People’s Palace)
E.On Power plant
De Constant Rebecqueplein 20
NL-2518 RA The Hague
The Netherlands
T +31 (0)70 392 53 59
This year the Volkspaleis (People’s Palace) takes place in the Turbine Hall of the E.On Power plant in the centre of The Hague. The enormous industrial hall, with a ground area of 2,400 square meters and a height of 35 metres is accessible to a broad public for the first time. Here West shows the world premiere of the magnificent, monumental film project The Lost (Die Verlorenen) by the American artist Reynold Reynolds.
The Lost is Reynolds’s newest project based on a film from Berlin set in the thirties. At the time the dynamic film was never completed due to the emergence of the Nazi regime, subsequently got lost and was recently recovered in Siberia. By coincidence Reynold Reynolds got the material and, together with a team of 20 experts, spent the past three years completing and restoring the large-scale project. Part of it is filmed before a live audience in galleries and theatres. The remarkable basic footage at first sight suggested a vampire film. But gradually it turned out to be the foundation for an installation about Germany’s uncensored cultural history and politics in the interbellum.
The Lost is a flowery narrative about dance, eroticism, history and censorship as perceived by the young writer Christopher. He works and lives together with young performers, dancers, artists and musicians and an eccentric hotel proprietor. The non-chronological narrative shows among other things parties in the nightclub Troika, a swan being decapitated, a female opera singer dressed in nothing but a vest and a mysterious séance. A young man discovers his sexuality and a murdered girl is miraculously resurrected. Among other things the project poses questions such as: What is evil? What is decadence? And what is the difference between these two?
Reynolds shares his fascination with cultural history, imagination and the confusion between memories and reality. The Lost is an effort to complete unfinished histories and shows the always topical controversy between art and politics.
In the Volkspaleis the impressive project of seven different life-size projections (each lasting well over 20 minutes) are shown for the first time as a whole. The Lost is an ‘on-going’ production in a kaleidoscopic arrangement. The audience can drop into the Volkspaleis and wander through the work.
In his experimental films and installations Reynold Reynolds focuses on various aspects of human existence. The enchanting aesthetic, both cool and sensual, provides the work with a remarkable power. His visual language is clear; he creates marvellous worlds of a highly symbolic nature, often in an environment where people’s everyday activities are poetical until chaos and drama replace life. In earlier work (Secrets Trilogy, Sugar, Six Apartments and The Drowning Room a.o.) we see him employ several different techniques to approach time in an elastic way.
Reynold Reynolds (b. 1966; Alaska, USA) recently had solo shows at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria; Institut für Moderne Kunst, Nürnberg; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany; The MoMA, New York and West, The Hague. Reynolds participated in various group shows around the world, such as Made in Germany Zwei, Hannover; The Chelsea Art Museum and PS 1 in New York; the Bass Museum of Art, Miami; the Biennial de la Habana, Cuba and the 3rd Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art. In addition he showed his work worldwide on dozens of film festivals. His work is part of several collections including MoMA, New York; The Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin; The Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon; the Museum of Old and New Art, Australia and the Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The presentation is accompanied by a new publication with a tekst written by Philip Peters (art historian and critic). ISBN 978-90-79917-35-8
Apart from the daily screenings there will be an extensive evening programme. For further information please contact the gallery.
