Ich glaube ich bin mir selbst verloren gegangen, denn Ihre Klischees hätten mich beinahe vernichtet

Description

"The performance runs parallel to an exhibition with self-portraits and stereotypical ideas about myself. During the exhibition opening, I sit behind a window in the gallery and look through the window at the action, isolated. All that is visible is my head, over which I have pulled a black cap. I pull this black mask over my face to symbolize my anonymity; my own person no longer exists, but only in the exhibition: through other people's ideas of me - about me -, through expectations, roles - I am this and that - have to be this way - I behave wrongly there - look this and that - the person Marcel Odenbach, the way I am constructed, seen by others - apparently am; the stereotypes in which those around me believe they know me! My "real" person is not seen - objectively; this stereotypical thinking can lead to a stage in which I no longer know what I believe I am. I have been made by others, I react as expected of me, my apparent personality is given a track on which I have to move - that is why I have lost myself!" (Source: Zdenek Felix (ed.), "Marcel Odenbach - Videoarbeiten", Germany: Köln, 1981, p.53.)

"In this exhibition, I no longer exist myself, but only as an "anonymous something", I no longer have a face, but a black mask with which I am isolated from the others!" (Source: Zdenek Felix (ed.), "Marcel Odenbach - Videoarbeiten", Germany: Köln, 1981, p.53.)

Additional Informations

This work has been presented at Galerie Ph. Magers, Bonn, in 1978 and at Galerie J. Schweinbraden, Ost-Berlin, in 1979. (Klaus Heinrich Kohrs (ed.), "Marcel Odenbach", Netherlands: Amsterdam, 1985, p.33.)

Type
Country
Date of creation