Ingo Niermann and Erik Niedling
Walder (2023) / Eigner (2024)
Commissioned work
Walder, courtesy of the artists and EXILE, Vienna
Dates
20.9.2024–16.2.2025
Details
Walder (2023)
4K-Video, Stereoton, 7:26 min
Eigner (2024)
4K-Video, Stereoton, 7:31 min
Location
Neue Galerie Graz, Graz
Part of
Horror Patriae: Exhibition
Production specifics
Walder (2023)
Mit freundlicher Genehmigung von EXILE, Wien
Eigner (2024)
In Auftrag gegeben von steirischer herbst ʼ24
Koproduziert von steirischer herbst ʼ24 und Dokumentationszentrum Thüringen
Mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Schweizerischen Botschaft in Österreich
Today, Germany is divided between a populist return to nationalism and a neoliberal elite instrumentalizing the memory of the Holocaust. Ingo Niermann and Erik Niedling’s video diptych explores ways of evading both pressures.
In the first film, Walder, a white male German subject seeks to free himself from all collectivism and reinvent himself as his own master. His voice paraphrases 19th-century idealism and its anarchic spirit, at the same time mixing it with contemporary alt-right libertarianism and self-healing practices of the left.
In the second film, Eigner, commissioned by steirischer herbst, the same protagonist grapples directly with Germany’s Nazi past, visiting the grounds of the Buchenwald Memorial. Instead of evading the camp’s presence, he tenderly embraces its extremes of perpetratorship and victimhood.
Retrospective
Retrospective