Christoph Schlingensief
Church of Fear
Dan Perjovschi
Naked Drawings
July 29 - September 25, 2005
Opening: Th. 28 July 2005, 7 p.m.
Museum Ludwig
Bischofsgartenstr.1
50667 Cologne
Tel.: 0221 221 26165
info [at] museum-ludwig.de
left : Dan Perjovschi, Naked Drawings, 2005, (c) Dan Perjovschi
right: Christoph Schlingensief in front of Church of Fear, Biennale di Venezia, 2003, (c) COF 2003.
The Church of Fear will be stopping off at the south roof terrace at Museum Ludwig. Parallel to the 20th World Youth Day in August 2000, a small wooden church that Christoph Schlingensief first presented in summer 2003 at the 50th Venice Biennale as an information centre for the Church of Fear will be set up in Cologne.
The Church of Fear, founded at the onset of the Iraq War by film maker, stage director and action artist Christoph Schlingensief together with eight further initiators, sees itself as an open alliance of fear. Starting point is the avowal of ones own fear, rather than putting ones money on the ideas hawked by political sectarians, TV evangelists or global conspiracists. Without bowing to dogmas or making any promises, the Church of Fear aims at a practical artistic dialogue with ideological groups in order to avert the production and exploitation of fear by the spokesmen, prophets and messiahs of politics, the press, culture, and business. The Church of Fear now has almost 100 congregations and over 370 support groups worldwide. It is time to take fear into the offensive.
Information on the Church of Fear is available under www.church-of-fear.net. and www.cof.com.ly.
Since the beginning of July Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi draws on the walls of the DC:Room with a marker pen. Within a few short weeks the entire room will be filled with drawings from top to bottom. This is truly work in progress. Visitors are invited to watch the artist at work, to protest, to give him their comments or fire him on with good ideas. And anyone who simply wants to look on can take a seat in Franz Wests “Kantine.
Some of the Romanian artists drawings are reminiscent of newspaper cartoons, and others of doodles done on the phone. But all are as simple and direct as a punch. Reduced to the essentials, they fly out at the viewer. Sometimes they are political, sometimes very political, but they never lack humour. Which means even topics like the Iraq war and the mini-job, or art war and the mini-artist have an anarchic levity so often missing from newspaper leaders and the leaders of the pack.
Both exhibitions are supported by the AC:/DC: Förderkreis, and additionally Dan Perjovschi is being sponsored by Linklaters Oppenhoff & Rädler and the Ifa-Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen.
On each Saturday from July 9th until the opening of the exhibition, the German newspaper taz will feature a drawing by Dan Perjovschi.
On Perjovschi. A dialogue with F.W. Bernstein and Harald Kretzschmar on August 23, 2005, 7 p.m. in the Museum Ludwig cinema.
Each project is accompanied by a catalogue published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König. As a media art project, the July issue of the Cologne monthly StadtRevue contained a supplement by Dan Perjovschi; the August issue contains a supplement by Christoph Schlingensief.
Press contact: Annegret Buchholtz: 49-221-221 23491, buchholtz@museum-ludwig.de
