Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

Niklas Goldbach

Bel Air

Installation vidéo | hdcam | couleur | 8:4 | Allemagne | 2012

In his video works, photographs and sculptures, Niklas Goldbach questions the relation between hierarchic societal structures and individual, liberal courses of action. Goldbach ́s protagonists ? dressed in the garment of the urban prototype in white shirts and black trousers and referred to as ?representatives? or ?placeholders? by the artist ? colonize seemingly epic stages of modern architectural complexes, postmodern urban environments or alleged paradises defying civilization, all finding their commonality as places oscillating between utopia, dystopia and heterotopia, while lacking any clearance for an escape. This theme is present in his video "Bel Air" (2011): the video takes us on an inner journey, on a real trip by car through the deserted landscape of the Everglades National Park in Miami. Using elaborate post-production, four of Goldbach ́s representatives negotiate solely via nonverbal communication the various levels of hierarchal conflicts whose result can only anticipate evil. While letting his protagonists (all played by German actor Christoph Bach) act the entire repertoire of male body language as encoded by the media, the parallels to the schizophrenic psychological situation of the individual or the society he is born into are hard to ignore. Text: Viktor Neumann

Niklas Goldbach, born in Witten, Germany, lives and works in Berlin. After studying Sociology at Bielefeld University and ?Photography and Video? at the Unversity of Applied Sciences Bielefeld, he was awarded with a "Meisterschüler" degree at the University of the Arts Berlin in 2006. In 2005 he received the Fulbright Grant New York and majored in the MFA program of Hunter College, New York City. Niklas Goldbach received several sholarships (i.e. Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn 2010, Arbeitsstipendium Bildende Kunst des Berliner Senats 2013) and has presented his works in numerous solo shows, group exhibitions, and festivals in venues like the Reina Sofia National Museum Madrid, Mori-Art Museum Tokyo, Centre Pompidou Paris, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Museum Ludwig Köln, Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, City Galery Gdansk, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück and the Shortfilm-Festival Oberhausen. Since 2009 he teaches as ?Visisting Professor? at the ?Umeå University - Academy Of Fine Arts?, Sweden. From 2012-13 he worked as guestprofessor for "Basics of Moving Image" at the University of the Arts (UdK) Berlin.