The Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Arts (CIRCA) continues its 20:23 programme on hope with the artist of a new generation, Anne Imhof. Launching 3 – 28 February 2023 across a global network of digital billboards, YOUTH will appear for the very first time on Asia Pacific’s largest LED outdoor screen in Hong Kong and broadcast every evening thereafter in London’s Piccadilly Circus, Berlin, Milan, Los Angeles, New York, Seoul and Tokyo.

Imhof, an artist who draws on cultural history, from Greek mythology to underground culture, whilst examining the dynamics of power, notes  ➳ “When I first saw these horses running through a deserted suburbia, I was thinking: What if Youth is freedom? What if Youth is hope? What if Youth is peace? One year later, watching them gallop around the world, the questions still remain the same.”

YOUTH was originally intended to be shown at the Garage Museum, Moscow, but was cancelled due to the start of the Russian-Ukraine war on 24 February 2022. With this CIRCA 20:23 presentation marking one year since the conflict began, CIRCA collaborates with Anne Imhof to organise a 24-hour fundraiser. Taking place on Friday 24 February 2023, proceeds will aid children affected by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Visit CIRCA.ART/YOUTH to subscribe for updates.

Set in Moscow, YOUTH presents a group of horses running and communing together in an open field covered in freshly fallen snow. They seem to nurture one another, moving beautifully and freely through the natural environment to the baroque strains of J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. ​​As the day moves slowly into night, the film reveals the site to be an urban one, a historic social housing development located at the edge of the city. Severnoye Chertanovo, which was built in the late 1960s, was developed as an experiment in mass housing after the Stalinist era. Humans are absent from the film, which touches on ideas of space, displacement and disorientation.

#CIRCAECONOMY PRINT
CIRCA has collaborated with Anne Imhof to develop a signed, limited-edition print in support of the #CIRCAECONOMY – a circular model that funds the CIRCA free public art programme and creates life-changing opportunities for the wider creative community. Available to order here.

Sir Norman Rosenthal, CIRCA Advisory Council Chairman, comments ➳ “Anne Imhof is, to my mind, one of the archetypal artists of this generation. She encapsulates through performance, through choreography, through painting, through drawing and just through being the necessary dreams and bottomless troubles of this age. She stares into the black hole and, through what she does, finds routes for escape and even hope. CIRCA is honoured to be showing this film of her horses galloping in the deep snow whilst hopefully raising vital funds for the ‘Youth’ of Ukraine. In the music and words of J. S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion – ‘have mercy on all of us’. We sure need it. And we need the art of Anne Imhof!

Anne Imhof has risen over the past decade to become one of the most renowned artists of her generation. The winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale (2017), Imhof has exhibited globally at Tate Modern, London; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Based between Berlin and New York, Imhof spent her formative years in Frankfurt am Main, where she taught herself to draw and make music while working as a bouncer at a local nightclub.

CIRCA 20:23 presents YOUTH by Anne Imhof coincides with the largest presentation of the artist’s work in the United States to date and her first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at Sprüth Magers from 15 February – 6 May 2023. Coinciding with Frieze LA (16 – 19 February) YOUTH will be screened every evening at 20:23 on Pendry West Hollywood and hourly on Marriott LA Live. See below for more details.

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.