Sergey Bratkov
Wiepersdorf (for Artist Friends) (2023)
Commissioned work
Courtesy of the artist
Dates
20.9.2024–16.2.2025
Details
HD video, stereo sound, 12:43 min.
Location
Neue Galerie Graz, Graz
Part of
Horror Patriae: Exhibition
Production specifics
Commissioned and produced by steirischer herbst ’24
Summertime bugs become Russian soldiers running for the trenches. Lines of white powder stand for tracks in the eternal Russian snow. A familiar song from the Soviet 1970s about the Volga accompanies the melodramatic poses of a homemade music video. Sergey Bratkov’s Wiepersdorf is a video diary delving into the darkly ironic imagination of a former Soviet subject.
Wiepersdorf is part of a growing body of similarly structured works collaging short, quasi-photographic smartphone clips with fragments of texts, songs, and voiceovers in a DIY aesthetic. Bratkov created it as a means of communication to make up for the lack of a common language with his neighbors: the other, much younger artists-in-residence at Schloss Wiepersdorf. Once the estate of Bettina von Arnim, a Romantic writer and human rights activist, this historic site was later a refuge for artists persecuted by the Nazis.
Retrospective
Retrospective