Volker Gerling

PORTRAITS IN MOTION. The exhibition

Photography

6 April to 16 July 2022
Exhibition opening: 5th of April 2022
BTV Stadtforum Innsbruck
Free entrance

Between photography, cinema and performance

An artist with a medium one certainly doesn’t see every day: the flipbook is a time-based object that is set in motion by the viewers themselves. Before our very eyes, individual photographs give rise to animated scenes with a beginning and an end. As soon as the last page is flipped, the flipbook is transformed back into the deconstruction of itself as a sequence of analogue images. On the one hand this medium possesses the apparent triviality of a toy, yet on the other, there is a strange synchronous complexity about it, making it object, series of photos and film all at once.

Frau mit geschlossenen Augen, Berlin, 2003

The physics behind the magic of these wonderful image sequences: a SLR camera that, with the help of a motor, takes 36 shots in 12 seconds. Our brain is capable of merging these rapidly flipped individual images into a smoothly flowing motion.

Alter Mann mit Krawatte, Unterstedt, 2009

“Volker Gerling captures the magic of the transitory and nearly invisible. His snapshots are poetic blinks of the eye lasting precisely 12 seconds.”

To Volker Gerling, the production process and the outcome are equally important: On long wanderings he carries his flipbooks on a hawker’s tray, and as he shows them, he meets new protagonists. Covering long distances on foot, the slow progress involved, meeting people through already existing flipbooks, all these are genuine elements of this work.

Along with his “traveling exhibitions” Volker Gerling has gained an international reputation above all as a successful stage artist who has presented his flipbooks to audiences at art and theatre festivals all over the world.

Mädchen mit Sommersprossen, Zürich, 2003

For INN SITU, the artist was invited to create new works in Tyrol and Vorarlberg. The exhibition at the BTV Stadtforum will be the first comprehensive presentation of Volker Gerling’s work in a visual arts context. The show will include videos of roughly 20 works and their background stories as well as individual portraits and glimpses into the artist’s work method.

Volker Gerling’s Flipbook Cinema

Born in Hilden, North Rhine-Westphalia, in 1968, he studied at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF in Potsdam-Babelsberg and has worked at the interface between photography and film since 1998. Gerling’s stage show, which he has performed at art and theatre festivals in some 30 countries on four continents to date, is based on numerous long walks and his experiences and encounters along the way. In 2015 he won the Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The artist lives with his family in the Schorfheide near Berlin.

INN SITU – Photography, music, dialogue

For this series we ask photographic artists working internationally to reflect on their connection with Tyrol and Vorarlberg and to create an original exhibition based on this encounter. Outside view meets inside perspective. Photography as a strategy to view our own world through the eyes of others.

Our focus here lies on artistic positions in which the process of perception and the development of the work on site both constitute important elements of the work itself.

Parallel to this, we invite musicians from the region to produce a new concert in artistic resonance with the photographic works. The dramaturgical triad of the INN SITU series is rounded off with a series of commentary dialogues combining science and everyday culture. All exhibitions and concerts hosted by INN SITU are original works developed specifically for the BTV Stadtforum.

LANDSCAPE AS PERFORMANCE

Dialogue

The dialogue took place on Thursday 6 October at 7 p.m.

Review:

Echoes of the exhibition from various fields of expertise. The dramaturgical triad of the INN SITU series was rounded off with an accompanying dialogue format. We invited experts from the fields of science, culture and music to respond to the exhibition. In doing so, we experimented with new formats of exchange. (Im Bild Transdisciplinary dialogue in response to the exhibition PORTRAITS IN MOTION).

Each of the speakers chose a picture from the exhibition and discusses it with the artist Volker Gerling before an audience. An open dialogue between various perspectives, with music and inspired by the exhibition.

Konstanze Zwintz

is an astrophysicist and specialist on the explosion as the beginning of the world. Konstanze Zwintz first took interest in young stars as a student. Back then she was a pioneer in this new field; today she is among the leading experts. She is currently a professor for Stellar Astrophysics at the University of Innsbruck, a position she has held since 2018.

Andreas Ambrosi, Brenner Base Tunnel BBT SE

is the press officer for the project company BBT SE. As such he has been responsible for the areas of public relations, media relations and stakeholder management since 2017. He has held various positions in the press and public relations divisions of different companies, including Swarovski International PR, Tyrolean state government, the City of Innsbruck and the APA – Austria Presse Agency in Tyrol and Vienna.

Hubert Matt

studied philosophy and art history. One of his main focuses is on strategies of performance in art and media. He works as a visual artist and researcher and teaches Perception, Culture, Design and Theory, among other courses, in the degree programme InterMedia at the Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences. His work has appeared in numerous exhibitions in Austria and abroad, and his exhibition design and texts on and for artists also have an international scope.

Isa Kurz, piano, and Bernhard Schimpelsberger, percussion

The multi-instrumentalist Isa Kurz is featured in the musical part of this INN SITU theme. In conjunction with the dialogue of the panel of experts she will improvise on the grand piano – joined by Bernhard Schimpelsberger, who will be playing various percussion instruments.