Clemens von Wedemeyer & Maya Schweizer

Clemens von Wedemeyer’s films combine an awareness of social issues with an investigation of the multiplication of cinematic perspectives and the processes of filming in front of as well as behind the scenes. At Argos, Wedemeyer will present his film installation Otjesd as well as a joint work with artist Maya Schweizer entitled Metropolis, Report from China. The title of the exhibition Films in Common reflects the cooperative and social working processes which characterise the works on view.

Otjesd, which in Russian means departure, is a meditation both on migration but also the act of film making itself, based on a real scene Wedemeyer witnessed when he was in Moscow: Russians waiting in a queue outside the German embassy. In the unlikely setting of a wooded wasteland Wedemeyer stages a surreal scene which intimates the Kafkaesque struggle with border bureaucracy.

Together with Otjesd, Wedemeyer will also show The Making of Otjesd, which describes the process and research behind the making of the film and a series of photographs from the set.

In 2004 Clemens von Wedemeyer and Maya Schweizer travelled to China in order to research for an adaptation of the legendary 1927 feature film Metropolis by Fritz Lang. The film has not been re-made but the result of the artists’ investigations in Beijing and Shanghai is a documentary film entitled Metropolis, Report from China (2006). The film features the interviews conducted there, footage of the urban fabric, casting research and discussions with the workers and architects who are responsible for the building of the 21st century Chinese metropolis. It provides insight into growth of the Chinese mega-city, but also questions the implications of modernity, development and progress at all costs. At Argos the film will be shown alongside photographs and archival material the artists collected during their research in China.

Clemens von Wedemeyer & Maya Schweizer
Films in Common