single channel video
color with sound
duration 17'30 min
loop, dvd
2006
limited edition, price on request
seven women
aged 18 to 28
nude portraits as moving stills
in classical painting tradition
tableau vivants – recorded on video
Nude. Women
Text by Sylvia John
We enter a room, in front of us appears a larger than life female nude. At first glance she seems lifeless. The picture’s background fades into black, the body brightly glowing in front of a green chair’s silhouette. We are the counterpart to the picture, the camera’s eye.
Landscape of the Body
We envision the subject of common panel paintings, Venus, Maya by Goya, Velasquez, Beckmann, Cezanne, Modigliani, assuming that we have seen this picture before. But this woman breathes, lives, blinks. We observe the body as a featured landscape. We wander upward, to find out more about what she is thinking. Everyday noise from the outside can be heard on the sound track. Maybe she is taking a short break from live, or she remains still because of a reason we cannot know. We are surprised by the duration of her stillness. We hear cars, birds, a hand rests on the belly. We think of skin, body art, nail polish, hair, sexuality. We watch the quiet face, the vulnerability of the white naked body compared to the blackness of its transience. From our thoughtfulness emerges an intimacy. We live a moment of familiarity through the virtual contact with the confessing stranger. The open body reflects us upon ourselves like a wound.
Intimacy
RP Kahl took the time to film different women in similar poses resembling the painter-model situation. It deals with the iconography of the ordinary, as a prototypic intimate scenery of role allocation. The women are lost, a fate that awaits us all. It is an invitation to watch and to collectively meditate. RP Kahl unveils a piece of contemporary history for us, without reference to location, names or spoken facts. We crawl into the body’s image and then it vanishes and another woman appears. The demand for slowness, for enduring something, forces us into unusual contemplation.
Nude. Women
Kahl seeks the truthful moment, the ultimate portrait of society, free from the constraints of classical film productions. Kahl relies on the experience – rhythm/interaction/contemplation – between recorded image and viewer, contextualised in the room and in the rest of his video art. References to “Moving Stills” can be found in the works of Warhol or Sharon Lockhart. “I cannot paint” explains RP Kahl, the filmmaker and yet he continues the tradition of the classical panel painting as a distinct art form.
Rp Kahl
1970 born in Cottbus, Germany
Lives and works in Berlin and Bärenstein, Germany
Grants
Born on november 8th 1970 in Cottbus. Trained as an actor he is working as a filmmaker since 1995. As producer, director and writer his output consists of films like "Silvester Countdown", "Angel Express", "99euro-films", "Europe - 99euro-films 2", and "Sunday Girls". Since the late 90s his work includes music videos, commercials and theatre productions and increasingly video art. In 2001 and 2005 he teaches art and film at the University of Applied Sciences in Hannover, as well as at the DFFB in Berlin in 2004. In 2003 he receives a grant of the Defa-Foundation, in 2005 he wins the award for the best young filmmaker from the Hessische Filmpreis and in 2007 he receives a residential scholarship from the Artist’s House in Ahrenshoop.
Projects
2001 // schauspiel hannover // videoinstallation
2002 // berlinale film festival berlin // presentation
2002 // filmfest münchen // nominee vg bild-kunst-award
2002 // aspen institut berlin // nominee artfilm-award
2003 // poetry film festival // presentation
2004 // locarno film festival // presentation
2005 // münzsalon berlin // performance
2005 // kunstverein plauen // group exhibition
2005 // kunsthalle wilhelmshaven nordwestkunst award // group exhibition
2005 // apollo-saal staatsoper berlin // videoinstallation
2005 // los angeles int. short film festival // competition
2005 // kunstfilmbiennale köln // nominee vg bild-kunst-award
2005 // bauhaus dessau // performance
2005 // oper magdeburg // videoinstallation
2006 // gallery 7. stock dresden // presentation
2006 // gallery mille d' air berlin // solo exhibition
2006 // gallery areal28 berlin // duo exhibition
2007 // künstlerhaus lukas ahrenshoop // installation
2007 // kammerspiele münchen // installation
2007 // general public berlin // presentation
2007 // opticafestival gijon // presentation
2007 // focus award symposium // lecture
2008 // instituto cervantes paris // presentation
