Catalogue > At random

The center piece (Blue Sky ? Palau) is a documentary movie shot in Palau. In November 2009, six ex-detainees from the US Prison in Guantánamo Bay have been released to Palau, which is known for its sparkling water, shiny beaches and beautiful diving spots. Faulhaber traveled to the tiny island nation of Palau in the South Pacific to visit the six men, which are part of the uighur minority in western China. He interviewed their Australian interpreter and his Excellency, the President of Palau. Following his trip to Palau, Faulhaber went to Shenzhen, China, to visit the Oil Painting Village Dafen, which is the world`s biggest conglomeration for reproducing and copying artworks. In Dafen he worked together with local artists to reproduce oil paintings from the portraits of the six men that can never go back to their homeland Xinjiang, which is now under Chinese hegemony. In this series of work Faulhaber focuses on some main questions surrounding the ideological and philosophical notion of the `picture` today: How strong is the global prevalence and regime of the picture? What kind of pictures are we supposed to conceive when thinking of Guantánamo? What is the state of the picture with regard to a global system of industrialized tools for copies, imitation and reproduction? Or, as W.J.T. Mitchell has raised the question: `What is the work of art in the age of biocybernetic reproduction?`

?I don?t see myself, primarily, as a political artist,? says Christoph Faulhaber. Still, there?s something disconcerting about this claim. A quick survey of the projects he has carried out to date tells us about the sale of Cuban real estate to customers in Florida, a preoccupation with the future of Ground Zero, problems with the FBI in New York, Faulhaber?s name on the United States Terror Watch List and the planning of an allocation center for former Guantánamo inmates in Hamburg. These are topics which catch our attention and brush on important discussions conducted in the media on a daily basis. Hence, Faulhaber made a name for himself in 2007 with his project Mister Security, which he carried out jointly with fellow artist Lukasz Chrobok over a period of three years. The project encompassed several actions in the public realm as well as two publications. Christoph Faulhaber, born 1972, is today one of the most promising young German artists. His work has been shown amongst others at the National Gallery Prague, Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, Laiyan Gallery Hong Kong, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Ludwigshafen, City Museum Remscheid, Kunstverein Hannover and Fridericianum Kassel.