With TAUBES GEÄST, Johanna Diehl and Raphael Sbrzesny create a resonating space that makes the entire Spreehalle resound. In the video installation conceived by Johanna Diehl, living and dead branches are tapped, beaten and rustled – a group of young trees becomes an expansive installation: they begin to crack and whisper and almost take on a voice of their own.

Felix Nussbaum’s painting “Triumph of Death” provides the artistic basis for the installation, as the instruments remained silent when captured on the canvas. But if you believe John Cage, there is no such thing as silence. Did John Cage refer to the constant presence of sounds and is it precisely the silence in Nussbaum’s work that comes across as deafening thunder?

On Thursday, 06.07. Raphael Sbrzesny brings these deaf branches to life at 6 pm and 6:30 pm and visualizes them in his performance.

 

Johanna Diehl is a photographer and visual artist from Hamburg. In her work, she searches for the hidden – the overlooked – and draws inspiration from the history that lies in the folds of memory. Her numerous award-winning works are exhibited nationally and internationally and can be found in many renowned collections. She has been Professor of Photography at the Faculty of Design in Würzburg since March 2019.

 

Raphael Sbrzesnyis an artist and musician. His multimedia installations consist of videos, mobile sculptures and costumes. In his performances, he is interested in the body as an instrument and setting for a subjective historiography. Raphael Sbrzesny studied fine arts, classical music, experimental music theater and theory in Stuttgart, Munich, Bern and Paris. He has been Professor of Sound, Performance and Concept at the University of the Arts Bremen since 2018.