Anne Imhof

Bold new video works by five artists of the moment living or working in London will take over the world’s largest public screens this July in London, Seoul and Tokyo. Curated by Sir Norman Rosenthal, ‘LONDON ZEITGEIST’ comprised of five independent films by Larry Achiampong, Alvaro Barrington, Matt Copson, artist duo Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings, together forming a bold and comprehensive showcase of the most promising artists within a generation to emerge from London. 

This group exhibition adopts its title from Rosenthal’s 1982 exhibition ‘Zeitgeist’ that was held in Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau almost forty years ago, and which was arguably one of the most historically significant global painting surveys of the 20th century, bringing together 45 of the world’s most driven and symbolically heroic artists of the moment. Rosenthal’s unwavering commitment and capacity to embolden the great talent of the time has become a defining characteristic of his career. In 1981, Rosenthal introduced artists such as Baselitz, Kiefer, Polke and Richter to an audience beyond Germany in ‘A New Spirit In Painting’ and helped launch the careers of  Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and many others with ‘Sensation’ in 1997 at the Royal Academy of Art in London:

“That complex German word “Zeitgeist” (Time/Spirit) that more and more has entered the English language – just like “Kindergarten” once did (!) – naturally relates to place as well as time. Each of the four young artists chosen I believe address these issues subjectively, inevitably, sometimes obliquely, yet each in a “Spectacular” and “Beautiful” way onto the iconic Piccadilly Lights screen. They then are transmitted to the other side of the globe. They are pictures both of issues and fantasies that obsess four individual artists living and working in London, forever a huge urban national centre, and that hopefully too will touch audiences around the world.” – Sir Norman Rosenthal

ONE is a work made for the public.  

Originally created for the Circa 20:20 New Years Eve countdown to 2021, I am honoured for it to now be a part of Norman Rosenthal’s curation. The video embodies my hopes for 2021 to be a year of change, marking a new period for us all where we stand up for freedom and peace while standing together against structural racism and structural misogyny everywhere. 

The work is derived from an experiment of isolating a key element from my performance ’SEX’ and displacing it into a natural setting — the seaside landscape of Normandy. The collaborative nature of my work is cyphered down to a performance of one. Eliza Douglas futilely whips the incoming tide as the sun sets beyond the horizon. The curving horizon is interrupted only be the faint gesture of a lighthouse in the distance, creating a dialogue with the imagined British shore beyond.

Anne Imhof (b. 1978, Giessen, Germany) imbues bodies and things with excessive libidinal charge, choreographing figures and staging objects to render intimate portraits of radical dis-identification. Ephemeral, yet violent longings are distributed through avatars of the artist’s self, particularly Eliza Douglas, her artistic partner and muse. Douglas first took center stage in Imhof’s Faust (2017) at the German pavilion during the 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia for which she was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation.

Anne Imhof is a contemporary German artist known for her performance, paintings, and installation work. The artist’s use of materials like black dibond, glass plinths, heavy-metal music, and Goth performers to confront prevailing power dynamics sometimes results in unease for the viewer. The use of subtle body language, constraining spaces, and vernacular materials in her performances show human emotions in a formal, almost depersonalized, light. “It’s basically the thoughts of the people that are performing in it that, in the end, shape it,” she said of choreographing her work. Born in 1978 in Geißen, Germany, she studied under the artist Judith Hopf at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, where she graduated in 2012. Since graduating, the artist has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, including “DEAL” (2015) at MoMA PS1 in New York and “Angst II” at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (2016). Her piece Faust (2017), shown at the German Pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennale, was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. She currently lives and works between Berlin and New York.