Film screening, Conversation and Music: Projection on the Crisis

Courtesy: BQ Gallery, Berlin

Film screening, Conversation and Music | General Idea

Projection on the Crisis

With Philipp Gufler, Marc Siegel, Susanne Sachsse and Zippora Elders, moderated by Kelly Krugman

Friday, 12.1.2024
16:30–19:00

Gropius Bau, Cinema (Lower ground floor)

In German and English
Free admission

Philipp Gufler’s video installation Projektion auf die Krise (Gauweilereien in München) takes a kaleidoscopic glance back to the early days of the AIDS crisis in Germany in the 1980s – a time when Munich’s repressive policy against homosexuals reached its peak. The work assembles archival documents such as newspaper articles, advertisements, photos and press reviews from this period. The historical material comes with commentary and analyses by other artists.

The film screening will be followed by a conversation between Philipp Gufler, Marc Siegel and Zippora Elders as well as music by Susanne Sachsse.

As a professor for experimental film, Marc Siegel will engage with these topics and reflect on the historical contexts in Germany and the USA.

The artist Philipp Gufler combines various media in his work, including screen prints on fabric and mirrors, artist books, performances and video works. For the video installation Projektion auf die Krise (Gauweilereien in München) (2014), he began his research in the self-organised Forum Queeres Archiv München, of which Gufler is an active member. Gufler was awarded with the Media Prize of the German AIDS Foundation in 2020.

Kelly Krugman (she/they), born in 1994, New Jersey, is a Mexican-American curator, editor and project coordinator at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, Germany. She co-founded SAVVYZAAR, the radio pillar of SAVVY Contemporary, which is dedicated to the sonic as a space of healing, catharsis and protest. They have been part of curatorial teams of projects spanning exhibitions, publications and public programmes in Berlin and abroad.

Susanne Sachsse was born and raised in the GDR. She is a Berlin-based artist and co-founder of the art collective CHEAP. Her most recent works include sound, video and object installations, which have been shown at Künstlerhaus Bethanien (2022) and the Kestner Gesellschaft (2023), among others. Her first solo exhibition opened in 2021 at PARTICIPANT INC in New York. 

Marc Siegel is Professor of Film Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. His research focuses mainly on issues in Queer Studies and experimental film. He is a member of the Academy of the Arts of the World in Cologne and part of the advisory board of the Forum Expanded section of the Berlinale.

Film screenings of "Conversation with Albert Knoll"

 

Gespräch mit Albert Knoll

by Philipp Gufler

2023, 25 min.
Camera: Leo van Kann
Production: Forum Queeres Archiv München e.V.
Edit: Philipp Gufler
Translation: Nicholas Maniu

For some time now I wanted to shoot a short film about Albert Knoll's tireless self-organized historical work and ask him why he has dedicated a large part of his life to commemorating the crimes against humanity committed during the Nazi dictatorship and what this archival work has done to him. A special focus is on oral history, as I am interested in how, as a conversational partner, one preserves their knowledge and experiences in a certain way after the death of the contemporary witnesses. After Albert Knoll has done so many contemporary witness interviews the last thirty years and was the one who asked the questions, I reversed the situation in the short film and interviewed him.

Film screenings:

OMOVIES

Napoli, Italy
11. – 16.12.2023

More Information

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Perth Queer Film Festival

Perth, Australia

6. – 14.3.2024

More Information

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Six Quilts

A Public Art Project at the Sports Facility at Ebereschenstrasse 15, Munich

The artist Philipp Gufler has been working on his quilt series since 2013, and it includes the six pieces now permanently installed at the sports facility at Ebereschenstrasse 15 in Munich. An artist’s book about the first thirty works of the series was published in 2020. The main impetus behind the works in this series is to make queer history visible—meaning, to give visibility to the histories of lesbian, gay, bi- and asexual as well as non-binary, trans- and intersex people. Every quilt is dedicated to a person, a place, or an important moment in queer history. The combination of images and texts, screen-printed onto transparent fabrics, visualizes something that is still missing in history books: experiences and life stories outside of what for a long time was, and partially still is, considered the “norm.” 

At the same time, the transparency of the fabrics also embodies the ephemerality of memories and underlines the importance of producing an inclusive kind of historical narrative. The choice of medium is particularly important for the series: at its most essential, a quilt is a piece of fabric that has been pieced together out of different snippets of fabric. In the North American context, it is considered an heirloom object that can be handed down from generation to generation. With his works, Gufler connects to that same idea: continuing history and passing it on. 

The quilt format is also associated with the US-based Names Project Foundation, which started working on a quilt for the countless long-ignored victims of the AIDS crisis back in 1987. With his works, Gufler too wants to remind people of those who were long forgotten and give them their deserved place in history. The artist underscores this goal in choosing the measurements of his fabric works. At a size of 180 x 90 cm, they are modeled on the proportions of the human body. The combination of these measurements and the transparency of the material produces visual works that can be read as historical archive turned art, alluding to the precarious situation of queer people and their past. 

Introduction by Nicholas Maniu

Texts on the Quilts by Philipp Gufler

Quilt #39 (Alexander Sacharoff) by Nicholas Maniu
Quilt #40 (Karl Heinrich Ulrichs) by Albert Knoll
Quilt #41 (Women’s Resistance Camp Hunsrück) by Nicholas Maniu
Quilt #42 (Guido Vael) by Sabrina Mittermeier
Quilt #44 (Hof-Atelier Elvira) by Linda Strehl
Quilt #45 (Justin Fashanu) by Christina Spachtholz

Fotos: Franzi Müller Schmidt & Peter Schinzler for QUIVID Kunst am Bau München

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts

 

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 

honey, milk and salt in a seashell before sunrise

curated by Iarlaith Ní Fheorais.

Festival dates: 3 - 19 November 2023
Galway city and county, Ireland. 

Saturday, 4 November, 12:30
Artist Talk: Philipp Gufler  
TULCA Gallery

Contributors include: Áine O’Hara, Aisling-Ór Ní Aodha, Anna Roberts-Gevalt, Bog Cottage, Bridget O'Gorman, Edward Lawrenson & Pia Borg, Holly Márie Parnell, Jamila Prowse, Jenny Brady, Leila Hekmat, Nat Raha, P. Staff, Paul Roy, Philipp Gufler, Rouzbeh Shadpey, Sarah Browne and Sean Burns.

BRANDHORST FLAG COMMISSION: PHILIPP GUFLER

 

9 September 2023 until 15 March 2024

9 September, 11 am, BREAKFAST AND COMMISSION VIEWING with PHILIPP GUFLER and a t-shirt sale for FORUM QUEERES ARCHIV MÜNCHEN

Starting in September 2023, Amsterdam and Munich-based artist Philipp Gufler will occupy the space with a new work. With his signature approach, he recontextualizes queer history in his often textile-based works. Rather than depicting complex overlays as in his silkscreen prints on fabrics and mirrors, for “Urning” he uses the visual impact of the medium of the flag.

 In his flags, Gufler places the lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs at the center of his work, using Pop Art aesthetics. Ulrichs coined the term “Urning,” which, in reference to the Greek god Uranos, was the first to formulate queer identity through a positive self-designation. At the German Jurists’ Forum, held at the Odeon in Munich on August 29, 1867, he demanded impunity for same-sex love. Although the term “Urning” did not catch on, Ulrichs has become a central source of inspiration for queer theory. Gufler links this historical importance to a significant poster campaign by the initiative Act Up Munich, which gained notoriety in 1995 for its protest against local Bavarian politicians. He updates the AIDS awareness campaign and creates a link between the historical treatment of queer identity and its relevance to current debates.

Curated by Dr. Monika Bayer-Wermuth

More Information.

BRANDHORST MUSEUM
Theresienstraße 35A
80333 München

The T-shirts can be ordered S, M, L, XL in white, S, M, XL in gray and S, M, XL, XXL in light blue at Forum Queeres Archiv München or here for 20 Euro plus shipping costs. With the purchase of a T-shirt you support our voluntary archive work.

Fotos: Haydar Koyupinar

On Listening

08 September – 12 November 2023

Thursday,  07 September 2023, 7 p.m.: Opening

Ashley Holmes, Forum Queeres Archiv München e.V. & Philipp Gufler, Helen Cammock, Hui Ye & Qu Chang, Jovana Reisinger, Maria Margolina 

From September, the art space Lothringer 13 Halle presents the project On Listening, which brings together international artists, researchers, activists, audio, archival material, theorists to question the dynamics of spoken and auditive narratives as well as listening. Together, the contributions and works explore the relevance and complexity of listening from multiple perspectives and open the exhibition space for conversation and exchange.    

For the project "On Listening" Philipp Gufler, artist and long-time active member of the Forum Queeres Archiv München (FQAM) realized a cinematic portrait of Albert Knoll's decades of archival and research work with a focus on Albert Knoll's self-initiated interviews with witnesses. Albert Knoll is a founding member of the Forum and has been on the board ever since. This new short film, together with selected archive material, provides a very personal and deep insight into Knoll's historical work as well as his commitment to the association with a focus on oral history(s) and witnessing.

Curated by Christina Maria Ruederer

Lothringer 13 Halle

Lothringer Straße 13

München

LOVE PLANETS

Philipp Gufler and Cosy Pièro

23 June - 28 July 2023 

Opening 22 June 2023, 6 - 8 pm
with a book presentation of A Shrine To Aphrodite by Philipp Gufler (Hammann Von Mier Verlag, 2023)

What planet do we live/love on? Is love timeless, infinite even? Who loves who or what? Philipp Gufler and Cosy Pièro’s work in the exhibition, Love Planets, at the Galerie Françoise Heitsch revolve around such questions of love in the broader sense of the word.

In Philipp Gufler’s Die Wirrwelt der Urninge (2023), brightly coloured undressed bodies unite in dance and desire against an idyllic mountain backdrop. Those potrayed in this paradise – the Uranians – owe their name to the planet Uranus and a mythological reference: the ancient Greek god Uranus, who has symbolized same-sex love since antiquity.¹ Without a woman’s involvement,, the goddess of love Aphrodite emerged from sea foam made up of Uranus’ fallen body parts. Based on this, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) coined the term Uranian, even before words such as gay or homosexual dominated language (initially and predominantly with negative connotations). Uranian was completely different, as Ulrichs also described himself as a pioneer of the queer emancipation movement in 1867 in what was most likely the first outing in modern history. Gufler takes a similar, proud stance when he confidently lends his own face to some of the figures in the picture. In terms of form and motif, the screen prints on paper refer to the wall-filling panorama Die Klarwelt der Seligen, which Elisàr von Kupffer (1872−1960) painted in 1925/37 within the context of the religious movement Klarismus. For Philipp Gufler, the mural stands for a paradisical, non-binary imagination of love set apart from categories of difference.²

By referencing the works of certain people of past generations, Gufler pays homage to a Queer Futurity³, which, in addition to Ulrichs and von Kupffer, is also primarily aimed at the second artist in this exhibition: Cosy Pièro. However, her artistic works reflect less on utopian future scenarios, as they are literally
anchored in life: for example, the leather shoes on which she wrote GEHEN LASSEN (letting go) with adhesive letters (2014). In sculptural gestures and with reduced text, such as Potenzial, Pièro negotiates fundamental parameters of human existence: energy, death, love. Everything and everyone have potential, yet contradictions remain. They are abstract, poetic comments on the inadequacies of the present; the political rationalisation of being together, the insistence on gender binaries, the heteronormative understanding of love. Aptly drawn on a deep blue screenprint: Ich liebe nur die Illusion (2012).

The visual artist’s commitment to this present is anything but illusory. With the bar “Bei Cosy”, she created one of the few spaces for the queer community in Munich from 1962 to 1980. In this space as well as in her art the focus was on encounters between people, regardless of age, origin, gender, and sexuality; an attitude that is particularly impressive in times of identitarian demarcations. Attracted by this, Philipp Gufler realised a re-enactment of the “Bei Cosy” bar in Amsterdam and Munich in 2015 and 2017 respectively, with the Publik Universal Frxnd. Cosy and Gufler have elective affinities for each other and have met over the search for queer points of reference in the past and present. They have been friends for nearly 10 years, have collaborated several times in the past and are now exhibiting here for the first time in a duo exhibition.

The heterogeneous oeuvres of Cosy Pièro and Philipp Gufler come together in this intersectional queering. Just as Pièro's works are reflected in Gufler's screen-printed mirrors in the exhibition, her work reflects back to Gufler, an artist several generations younger. On the occasion of the publication Cosy bei Cosy (2023), published in collaboration with Ruine Munich,⁴ he dedicated a performance including a costume to her, which can be seen in the exhibition. Photographs of Pièro's Potenzial series are printed on the robe. The future moment of the exhibition manifests itself in this closeness across spatial and temporal distances: Queer Futurity overcomes the utopian mode. It is not a longing for a queer, intangible future reality, but a creation in the form of a transgenerational solidarity and reflection between two artists, through live/love.

Mareike Schwarz


¹ https://schwulengeschichte.ch/epochen/2-weg-zur-selbstbestimmung/vorkaem....
² Philipp Gufler, Zine for the exhibition Substitutes at W139 in Amsterdam, 2023, page 8.
³ José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, NYU Press, 2009.
⁴ Thanks go to the members of Ruine München: Leo Heinik, Jan Erbelding and Maria VMier.

Galerie Françoise Heitsch
Amalienstrasse 19
80333 München
Germany

SUBSTITUTES at W139

SUBSTITUTES

22 April - 18 June 2023
Exhibition opening: Friday, 21 April 2023 from 6 pm - 10 pm

Substitutes engages with queer history and discourses around the body, gender, and sexuality. It features artists across several generations working in a variety of mediums to contextualise and converse with these discourses. The exhibition is about the absence of bodies, the abstraction of the body, and the tools and language we use to maintain or describe our bodies—costuming, staging, masks, layering, clothing. It questions the normative frameworks that queer and functionally diverse people are subjected to. The human body is, paradoxically, both absent and present within the exhibition. 

Initiated by the artist Philipp Gufler, Substitutes brings together works of Lorenza Böttner, Johanna Gonschorek, Elisàr von Kupffer, Rabe perplexum, Louwrien Wijers, Johannes Büttner, and Bruno Zhu. Philipp Gufler will show a new work titled Body/Text: a large-scale silk screen printed textile piece that draws inspiration from Elisàr von Kupffer’s panorama painting Klarwelt der Seligen (Clear World of the Blissful). By connecting contemporary discussions to historical perspectives, the exhibition aims to create a ‘living archive’. Drawing together artistic positions from then and now, the exhibition traces queer lives and networks from the past to our present. 

public programme

Keeping up with the Virus
Thursday 11 May from 20:00 to 21:00

A performance by Szymon Adamczak with Billy Mullaney exploring interdependency, connection seeking, risk-taking, and solidarity through the embodied metaphor of the virus performing in the artist’s body in the era of undetectability. Situated in relation to the unique constellation of artists gathered at W139, the performance looks to activate genealogies and dramaturgies of living with HIV across time.

Tomorrow’s Language
Saturday 3 June from 16:00 to 17:30

A dialogue between the artists Louwrien Wijers, Rory Pilgrim, and Philipp Gufler. Together they will explore Louwrien’s artworks, the significance of food, intergenerational friendships among artists, and the importance of learning from one another. Expanding on the topic of food, chef, artist and longtime collaborator of Louwrien, Egon Hanfstingl, will be preparing a saffron honey yogurt for all attendees to enjoy at the end of the event.

Guided Tour of the Exhibition
Sunday 4 June from 15:00 to 16:00

by Philipp Gufler and Tomas Adolfs.

Guided Tour of the Exhibition
Friday 9 June from 18:30 to 19:30

by Philipp Gufler and Wilfred van Buuren in collaboration with IHLIA.

Rabe perplexum and the Eccentric 80s
Friday 9 June from 20:00 to 21:30

A film screening and book presentation with Angela Stiegler and Philipp Gufler in collaboration with the Goethe Institut Amsterdam. With their performative and collaborative works, Rabe perplexum was a subversive voice of queer subculture in the 1980s. In conversation with Fabian Reichle, the artists Gufler and Stiegler will discuss artistic practices of the ‘Eccentric 80s’, their exhibition and publication of the same name, from today’s perspective.

Visual identity by Jacob Hoving.

This exhibition is generously supported by Mondriaan Fonds, Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Fonds21, Goethe Institut, Centro Elisarion, Pro Elisarion Association, Monacensia im Hildebrandhaus, Forum Queeres Archiv München and Grafisch Atelier Hilversum. 

W139
Warmoesstraat 139
1012JB Amsterdam, Nederland
Tue – Sun 12:00 – 18:00

Photos: Pieter Kiers