Triangular Stories, 2012
mixed media installation
1992. Both home videos have the same date. Both videos reveal intimate things from the life of three teenagers. While few of them can‘t wait to take Ecstasy for the first time at the Amnesia, the world of the others ends behind Jena‘s tower blocks.
The artist Henrike Naumann (born 1984) is from Zwickau, where the Nationalsocialist Underground (NSU) lived in bourgeoise underground and spanned their neonazi extremist murderers. This video work is a very personal approach to dealing with the fascist tendencies in her old home are as well as with the hedonistic self-optimizing drive of her generation. The obsolete medium VHS (Video Home System) in its loss becomes a mirror for that generation.
Both videos are screened via analogue VHS-loop on two TVs, incorporated into cut-outs from the original movie sets where the films where shot. These sets are set up in opposed sides of a room. The installation reflects the characters of the room it is build in, and therefor is different at every screening.
1992. Beide Homevideos tragen das gleiche Datum. Beide Videos geben Intimes preis aus dem Leben dreier Teenager. Während die Einen kaum erwarten können, im Amnesia das erste Mal Ecstasy zu nehmen, hört für die Anderen die Welt hinter Jenas Plattenbauten auf.
Die Künstlerin Henrike Naumann (Jahrgang 1984) stammt aus Zwickau, wo Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Böhnhardt und Uwe Mundlos als Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund (NSU) unentdeckt im bürgerlichen Untergrund lebten und ihre rechtsextremistischen Morde planten. Die Videoarbeit ist für sie eine sehr persönliche Auseinandersetzung sowohl mit den faschistischen Tendenzen in ihrer alten Heimat als auch mit dem hedonistischen Selbstoptimierungstrieb ihrer Generation. Das Medium Video Home System (VHS) wird in seiner Vergänglichkeit zum Spiegel dieser Generation.
Die beiden Videos laufen im VHS-Loop auf zwei Fernseher, eingebettet in Ausschnitte aus den Sets, in welchen die Filme gedreht wurden. Die Sets werden in zwei gegenüberliegenden Ecken eines Raumes aufgebaut. Die Arbeit wird auf die Gegebenheiten angepasst, und kann so in jedem Raum eine ganz neue Wirkung entfalten.
Photos by Stefan Haehnel
Henrike Naumann
Henrike Naumann was born 1984 in Zwickau (GDR). Growing up in Eastern Germany, Naumann experienced extreme-right ideology as a predominant youth culture in the 90s. Her work reflects on the history of the right-wing terrorism in Germany as well as on today‘s broad acceptance of racist ideas. She looks at the mechanisms of radicalization and how they are linked to personal experience and youth culture. Naumann explores the friction of contrary political opinion through the ambivalence of personal aesthetic taste. In her immersive installations she combines video and sound with scenographic spaces. In recent years she widened her focus to the global connectivity of youth cultures and the reversion of cultural othering. Notable exhibitions include solo shows at the Belvedere 21 in Vienna, Kunsthaus Dahlem in Berlin, Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach and Galerie Wedding, Berlin, as well as participations at the Busan Biennale (2018), Riga Biennial (2018), Steirischer Herbst, Graz (2018), 4th Ghetto Biennale at Port-Au-Prince (2015), and the 3rd Herbstsalon at Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin (2017).
Henrike Naumann lives and works in Berlin.
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