Selfie hype, veggie boom, beauty surgeries and fitness mania - what is actually our problem? In times of grotesque self-optimization and omnipresent pressure to perform, the exhibition "I AM A PROBLEM" invites us on a furious journey through the plateaus and lowlands of human existence. Staged by the much acclaimed young director and stage designer Ersan Mondtag, a dark and at the same time provocative parallel world unfolds in the exhibition space, in which works from the MMK collection become the protagonists of a narrative and enter into dialogue with one another.
The starting point for Mondtag's production is a myth surrounding Maria Callas (1923-1977). In order to achieve her dream figure, the world-famous opera singer is said to have ingested a tapeworm with a glass of champagne. According to legend, the parasite led to an astonishing weight loss of 50 kilograms within a short period of time. Callas's uncompromising efforts to shape her own appearance according to her ideals, as well as its flip side, the dissolution of her own body, form the leitmotifs of the exhibition.
A scenic parcours transforms the MMK 2 into a stage space with winding paths on which we encounter borderline and double figures, silent rebels and failed existences. The staged works range from Andy Warhol's "Kellogg's Cornflakes Box" to a new expansive pneumatic sculpture by Plastique Fantastique and recent MMK acquisitions such as Will Benedict's titular music video "I AM A PROBLEM". It is the gestures of resistance, some timid, some resisting, that Ersan Mondtag traces in these works, allowing them to become the modern anti-heroes of his narrative.
With texts by author Thomaspeter Goergen - spoken by ensemble members of Hamburg's Thalia Theater - Mondtag gives the works a voice and lets them become actors of their own longings and fears. Mostly in conflict, their dialogues revolve around existential themes of being human, such as the transformability of one's identity, the pursuit of perfection, or the transience of organic matter.
Mondtag's production reveals how the metamorphoses of the corporeal become emblems of private and social dissolution. The pursuit of perfection ultimately leads to aggression, fanaticism and violence. For those who are willing to sacrifice themselves are also willing to sacrifice others.
Image: Kader Attia: Repair Analysis, 2013, Courtesy VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017, Photo: Axel Schneider
Source and further information: http://mmk-frankfurt.de/de/nc/ausstellungen/ausstellung-details/article/i_am_a_problem/
