Preview*Blaenwelediad: Fri 1 Dec • 7-9pm • Gwe 1 Rhag
Exhibition*Arddangosfa: Sat 2 Dec – Sun 21 Jan • Sad 2 Rhag– Sul 21 Ion

Julian Rosefeldt’s films possess a complex visual quality in which the viewer is immersed in lavishly staged sets, which are projected in cinematographic style onto several canvases. Caught in a continuous loop, his protagonists move in heavy rhythms, matched by the action of the camera gliding slowly forwards and backwards. Rosefeldt treats everyday rituals and clichés analytically and ironically, subverting them by shifting the action into the absurd.

Clown is set in the middle of a dense tropical rainforest where, from the far distance, a clown appears climbing through the rocky path of a stream, disappearing in and out of view back into the forest. Exploiting the overtly theatrical figure of the clown as a nonsensical agent of the human condition, Rosefeldt’s mise-en-scène acts out the uncertain connection between the deliberate absurdity of the situation and the apathy of the event unfolding, where the costume and extreme surroundings point out the film’s double play on disguise.

The clown is, for Rosefeldt, a metaphor, with the function to interrogate the role of the artist as a thwarted provider of entertainment, working on a stage that is a caricature of uneasy and uncertain situations.

Alongside Clown, Chapter is delighted to premiere in the UK Rosefeldt’s new work Lonely Planet which uses the figure of an ambitious backpacker on a trip through India, played by the artist himself, in order to challenge the way that images and clichés are formed. His journey takes him from romanticised motifs to the slums of Bombay. Here the scene suddenly shifts from a fictitious narrative to the reality of filmic scene-setting: the tourist emerges as a performer amongst cameras and spotlights – the dirty metropolis gives way to the artificial and illusory atmosphere on the set. A putatively authentic India reverts to the realm of Bollywood, culminating in a musical interface from the film. Finally, the current Indian clichés of chaos, kitsch and call-centres dissolve into a surreal choreography.

Rosefeldt graduated with an MA in Architecture and has participated in a number of international exhibitions such as Dark Places at Santa Monica Museum of Art (2005), the 2005 Prague Biennial and the 2004 São Paulo Biennale. Solo exhibitions include Clown, Max Wigram Gallery (2006); Asylum, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead and Kunst-Werke, Berlin (both 2004) and Trilogy of Failure, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2002).

For more information contact Hannah Firth or Elena Schmitz on +44 (0)29 2031 1055, visual.arts@chapter.org

Image: Julian Rosefeldt, Clown, 2005, Light jet print 187 x 185 cm (unframed) / 71.7 x 70.9 in (unframed). Courtesy the artist and Max Wigram Gallery, London