Clemens von Wedemeyer:

Otjesd / Leaving

video installation

In "Otjesd" Clemens von Wedemeyer has recreated situations of waiting in front the German Consulate in Moscow in a peripheral quarter in Berlin with Russian migrants. Transposed into film, these situations glide past like an absurd fairy tale or a dream. The camera work – a single slow pan – and the warm artificial light contribute to this impression.

more about the work

within the framework of the exhibition The Leipzig Phenomenon at Műcsarnok Budapest

partners of the exhibition:
Essl Gyűjtemény, Klosterneuburg; Dogenhaus Galerie; Galerie Kleindienst; Galerie Eigen + Art; Galerie b2_ Klemm’s, Berlin; Christian Ehrentraut; Goethe-Intézet Budapest, Magyar Képzőművészeti Egyetem

supporters of the exhibition:
Oktatási és Kulturális Minisztérium, Nemzeti Kulturális Alap, Budapesti Tavaszi Fesztivál, Goethe Intézet Budapest, Candy Hoover Hungary Kft, Ibis Budapest Heroes Square, Ytong (Xella Magyarország Kft.)

supporters of Videospace Budapest:

about Otjesd:

In “otjesd” Clemens von Wedemeyer has recreated situations of waiting in front the German Consulate in Moscow in a peripheral quarter in Berlin with Russian migrants. This production was preceded by observations and film research at the visa application offices in Berlin and Moscow.

The dialogues and the scenarios – people waiting, others offering economy trips, the staff sitting at folding tables outside to help fill out forms, or a large sign - are based on these observations. Transposed into film, these situations glide past like an absurd fairy tale or a dream. The camera work – a single slow pan – and the warm artificial light contribute to this impression.

With the change of locations (Berlin/Moscow) and quotations from the history of film, the artist and film theoretician Clemens von Wedemeyer tests how much fiction is needed to depict realities. Cinematically far removed from the documentary and more in the format of the cinema of illusions, in “ otjesd” Wedemeyer uses fragments of a reality to focus on the surreal experience of border bureaucracy. The film imagines an endless loop, in which the protagonists who want to leave their country appear to be caught.

Artist, born 1974, lives and works in Leipzig and Berlin.