Press Release
THE BAKERY
KLEINE PARTIKEL IN ERDNÄHE
Felix Burger
19.03 – 14.05.2016
In the Bakery, a video and three large analogue photographs by Felix Burger are on view. With his Weißer Zwerg series Burger creates a concept of the world without leaving his studio by working with visual manipulation in order to create his own micro-cosmos. This results in fake-universe photographs Untitled (2016) in which stars are made with the help of garbage bags, a lamp and dripping hot glue.
Alongside the photographs there is a 16 mm film titled Shell Shock Syndrome (2014) playing on a loop, which depicts the artist sitting in his isolated studio. His entire body is trembling: it seem like he is frightened by something invisible or suffering from a mental illness. Burger’s (un)controlled, puppet-like movements are synchronized with the chattering of the projector. It seems as though the artist is controlled by the projector. In this film Burger is restaging a shell shock film fragment from the early 20th century. Shell Shock Syndrome is a traumatic illness, from which mainly WWI soldiers who had fought in open-field battles suffered. Due to extreme mental strain they developed symptoms of panic attacks (a tick, trembling), which often stayed with them throughout their whole life and did not allow them to return to society. Burger takes this iconographic historical image and transfers it into his own system.