OPHELIA

Feb 10 2019 to Jun 30 2019
SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen

“OPHELIA is an interdisciplinary performance that will be presented at SCHAUWERK on February 10, 2019, first as a live action and then as a video installation until June 30. It reflects on the destruction of nature caused by humans and creates references to art, literature and science. Wearing a saltwater solution, a breathing mask and “Ophelia’s” dress, artist Nadja Verena Marcin attempts to quote the text “The Werld” by Daniil Kharms about human perception. Since December 2017, the performance has been presented at various locations around the world, including San Francisco, Santa Cruz (Bolivia) and Cologne.

In addition to OPHELIA, two other video performances and four photographic works are on display. The video performance How to Undress in Front of your Husband, 2016 is a remake of the short film by Dwain Esper from 1937, in which the supposed “dos” and “don’ts” of a woman undressing in front of her husband are presented. Marcin slips into various roles and removes her clothes in different ways – exemplary, trampling, stumbling. In the video performance Zero Gravity from 2013, the artist, dressed like an employee of a space organization, floats seemingly weightlessly in an airplane. She quotes from the text Der tolle Mensch, 1882 by Friedrich Nietzsche. Marcin mainly uses the media of performance, video and photography in her work. Using her own identity and physicality, she explores and deconstructs social roles and deals with topics such as gender, history, morality and politics.”