Stefan Panhans: Sorry

Exhibition catalogue, edited by Eva Schmidt
text (German/English) by Hans-Jürgen Hafner and with an epilogue by Eva Schmidt
84 p with 64 full page colored illustrations
210 x 140 mm, hardcover with dustjacket

ISBN 978-3-940953-73-5

(out of print)

Double-bind or blind me!

Stefan Panhans’s videos and photographs deliver precise reflections upon contemporary culture. His works perform a kind of »mental archaeology« of various media, very much in the style of artistic research. They focus thematically upon the topic with all the demands, challenges, and media-based obsessions to which it is prone in times of virtuality and control. Thus in the new video »Sorry«, we witness a number of people from various different professions and callings on an oppressive train journey with an undisclosed destination: ex­hausted VIP douples, soldiers, German Special Forces commandos. Nobody is talking, they all seem overtired, maybe they are only performing unknown rituals, which, although the settings are familiar, we ultimately don’t understand.
The Book on the Film which accompanies the exhibition »When is the moon finally going to rise?« in the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen, contains several video stills and photographs which Panhans shot during the production of the video – including portraits of the actors in various »stages of transformation on their path to find their roles.«

Exhibition:
Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, 06/03–07/07/2011