Rufen bis zur Erschöpfung
To Cry until Exhaustion

Description

"On the grounds of what would later become the Charles de Gaulle Airport, Jochen Gerz calls out in the direction of a camera and a microphone placed at a distance of 60 meters until his voice gives out."
(Source: Volker Rattemeyer & Renate Petzinger (eds.), Jochen Gerz - Performances, Installationen und Arbeiten im öffentlichen Raum, Werkverzeichnis Band I, Bonn, 1999, p.32.)

"Rufen bis zur Erschöpfung is a duel between the artist, the “original", and the mechanism, the medium of reproduction. The issue of deterioration of the original with regard to time is a recurrent theme in Gerz’s work. Set in front of the camera, whose potential for resistance is greater than that of a human being, the “I" is depicted by its physical limits. The dialectic between the individual and the machine comes up again in Exhibition of Jochen Gerz next to his photographic reproduction (1972): after standing next to a photograph of himself for two hours, the image ends up taking the place of the original. However, the outcome is not always unfavourable to the living being in this dependency-hate relationship between the artist and the machine: in La Fumée, a work made in 1970, Jochen Gerz takes photographs of a smoking factory chimney as often and rapidly as possible until, after 196 pictures, the camera jams." (Source, website, James Bulley)

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Additional Informations

Collection Centre Pompidou, AM 2003-F10

Publications and Periodicals which reference the work

Volker Rattemeyer & Renate Petzinger (eds.), Jochen Gerz - Performances, Installationen und Arbeiten im öffentlichen Raum, Werkverzeichnis Band I, Bonn, 1999.

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