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DAVID KRIPPENDORFF
(b. 1967 in Berlin. Lives and works in Berlin.)
David Krippendorff, born in Berlin in 1967, is a US/German interdisciplinary artist and experimental filmmaker. Currently based in Berlin, he grew up in Rome, Italy, and studied art at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin, Germany, where he graduated with a masters degree in 1997, and was based in New York for some time.The son of a Holocaust survivor and the grandchild of practicing Nazis, cultural contradiction and dislocation shaped Krippendorff’s experience early on. His artistic practice inquires into this state of being a “permanent foreigner” and explores resulting questions of home, national and cultural identity, and belonging.
Krippendorff’s earlier work focused on Hollywood films and investigated underlying ideologies in iconic movies such as The Wizard of Oz, Gilda, Gone With the Wind, and West Side Story. His more recent work has shifted away from found material towards the creation of a personal visual vocabulary based on original footage, but still using products of our collective culture as a departure point and inspiration.
Krippendorff’s works, films and videos have been shown in major international institutions and Biennales, including: the New Museum (New York, USA); ICA, Institute of Contemporary Art (London, UK); Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg, Germany); Museum On The Seam (Jerusalem, Israel), RMCA, Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art (Guangzhou, China); Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art (Chengdu, China); Aram Art Museum (South Korea). He has participated in four Biennials (Prague, Poznan, Tel Aviv, and Belgrade), as well as in many international art and film festivals worldwide.
Selected recent exhibitions include: Minor Universes: Technology-led Emotions, Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art, Chengdu, China (2022); Gilded, Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin, Germany and Chateau de Nyon, Switzerland (2022); States of Emergency, MOMENTUM, Berlin (2021); Parallel Worlds, Ruhsor Museum of Contemporary Art, Samarkand, Uzbekistan (2021); Art from Elsewhere, Kunsthaus R3, Ansbach, Germany (2021); Timescapes, K.P.Gallery, Seoul, South Korea (2021); Points of Resistance, MOMENTUM & KvW, Zionskirche, Berlin (2021); 2nd Bienal Internacional de Asunción, German-Paraguayan Cultural Centre, Paraguay (2020); Elysium, MOMENTUM & KvW, Berlin (2020); In weiter Ferne so nah, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, (2020); COVIDecameron, MOMENTUM (2020); Show Me Your Selfie, Diskurs, Berlin, and Aram Art Museum, Goyang Cultural Foundation, South Korea (2019); Bonum et Malum, MOMENTUM & KvW, Villa Erxleben, Berlin (2019); Connections and Fractures, RMCA – Redtory Museum for Contemporary Art, Guangzhou, China (2019); Word Up!, C24 Gallery, New York, USA (2019); Power Struggle, Mah-e Mehr Gallery, Teheran, Iran (2019); Für Immer Blau, Kunstverein Duisburg & Villa Waldsteige, Germany (2018); Møenlight Sonata, Kunsthal 44Møen, Møen, Denmark (2018); The Women Behind, Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Israel (2018); and numerous others dating back to 1999.
NOTHING ESCAPES MY EYES
2015, Video, 14 min 9 sec
Nothing Escapes My Eyes (2015) takes us on an intimate journey through identity and history. David Krippendorff’s time-warping tribute to a changing world presents a would-be Aida, to a moving soundtrack from the eponymous opera, shedding tears for a place and time which no longer exist.
Nothing Escapes My Eyes is about a silent transformation of a place and a human being, both subjected to the melancholy of conforming. The film was inspired by the famous opera Aida, to depict in a metaphoric form current issues of cultural identity, loss and the pressures to conform. The film refers to the following historical event related to this opera: Aida premiered in Cairo in 1871 at the Khedivial Opera House. One hundred years later the building was completely destroyed by fire and replaced by a multi-story parking garage. Nevertheless, to this day, the place is still named Opera Square: Meidan El Opera.
The film combines this urban alteration with the painful transformation of a woman (actress Hiam Abbass) in the process of shedding one identity for another. With no dialogue, the film is backed by a musical excerpt from Verdi’s opera Aida, whose lyrics express the difficulties of being loyal to one’s country and cultural identity. The personal and urban transformation tackles issues of identity, loss and disorientation as a result of historical colonialism and contemporary globalization.
[David Krippendorff]
Watch here the Spotlight interview with David Krippendorff