Wiesbaden Biennale /
Exhibition period / 23rd of August to 2nd of September 2018
In August 2018, the Wiesbaden Biennale, hosted by Hessisches Staatstheater, after the new concept last year, again brings a mixture of theater, performance and contemporary art to the Hessian state capital. From August 23 to September 2, 2018, under the direction of Maria Magdalena Ludewig and Martin Hammer, the Biennale will not only be located in the traditional venues, but will also feature urban space with international positions from various disciplines. For the Nassauische Kunstverein Wiesbaden, director, architect and installation artist Thomas Bo Nilsson and stage designer Julian Eicke developed an installation that operates as a direct communication channel to the performances at the City Passage.
Their work Betreutes Leben - Ezzelino Web Cams confronts the visitors with a multi-faceted fantasy world. An anonymous Swedish client has ordered an immersive visualization of his most intimate fantasies to experience it at any time via the website, live stream and chat. A film set in the arcade of the City Passage serves as a backdrop in which two comic characters manage the fantasies of the client for eleven days, 24 hours a day. In the anteroom of the film set you can watch selected scenarios via livestream, but if you really want to dive in, you can climb into the tree house installed in the Nassauischer Kunstverein, log into the chat and get in contact with the film crew. Maybe a door opens for a very private studio visit in the back rooms of the arcade?
The inspiration for the two artists was the novel Assisted Living, published in 1992 under the pseudonym Nikanor Teratologen. This triggered a scandal and quickly reached cult status. Written in northern Swedish dialect and filled with explicit violence, pedophilia, incest and racism, the novel fascinated both critics and the audience with its comic-like literary writings. Speculation arose on the real authorship, until finally the young, almost unknown Niclas Lundkvist emerged behind the pseudonym.
What was read for a long time as a radical, stylistically determined moral provocation, appeared in a new light in 2016. Journalists discovered connections between the explicitly neo-Nazi and very active network profile Ezzelino and the author. Ingenious first work of an aesthetic provocateur or a rather sadistic fantasy of an active neo-Nazi?
Find more information about the program: http://www.wiesbaden-biennale.eu/
