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Henning von Gierke, born in 1947, is currently living in Munich. . Henning von Gierke became internationally known as an outfitter for the motion pictures Kasper Hauser, Herz aus Glas, Strozek, Woyzeck, Nosferatu (Silberner Bär, Berlinale 1978), Fitzcaraldo and many other titles and also as a stage designer and costume director for Dr. Faust by F. Busoni in Bologna, Lohengrin by Richard Wagner, staged by Werner Herzog, at the pageants in Bayreuth, Rheingold by Richard Wagner etc.
Since 1970 Henning von Gierke contributed to over 30 theatre-productions and music-theatre-productions. Amongst others he worked with Werner Herzog, Robert Wilson, Michael Hampe and IsaoTakashima. The collaboration with Werner Herzog began in 1973 as Herzog engaged the 25 years old autodidact Henning von Gierke as an outfitter for the motion picture Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle. Five further motion pictures and several music-theatre-productions were developed during their collaboration.
What are legends? Why do peoples subsume their past in mythological tales? Why do we tell our children fairy tales? Fairy tales, myths and stories are journeys into our interior, the attempt to explain yourself and to understand yourself. To visualise this search - covered in stories, in self-repeating fret-like singings, - is the objective of the exhibition.
In his painting, which is the most important art for him, Henning von Gierke develops visionary pictures which capture the mythical and magical elements of perspectives, thoughts and symbols in fairy tales. An archaeology of remembrance extends its potential of expression in object-boxes and room-installations. In the furniture of the commemorative archive von Gierke preserves objects of different motion pictures, which he did outfit. The lockers are the museum of his memories, that he arranges in a new order through the location of safekeeping. Everyone who knows the movies notices explicit scenes in the objects, for example the Kasper-Hauser-Locker.
In the entire installation Goldener Strom (golden stream), which constitutes the title of the exhibition, the narrative continuity of Henning von Gierke is brought together in different works: The picture-based story Rheinschwimmer connecting itself in a circle, which is a walking-tour next to the Rhine, a narration of flowing and changing, the commemorative archive of his motion picture outfits, archaeological place of discovery of his work in music-theatres, the cycle Motive (motives) consisting of ten elements, in which von Gierke defined his own guiding principles through examination of Richard Wagner's themes, a chamber of wonders of his image conception and the cycle Spiegelungen (reflections), emerging since 2002, which contains 42 oils and also creates the fictitious mythological narration of an identification process in the reflection of the counterpart, by pictures dealing with the topics of Psyche, Narcist, Cupid and Aphrodite.
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Archives of Memories Nosferatu, 1978, 1900 x 95 x 40 cm,
Wood, Glass, Various materials, Behind: Triptychon, 120 x 360 cm, oil on canvas |
The concept of the exhibition starts with a movie-lounge and the presentation of the recently produced, in part, large-sized paintings, which pick up the theme. Werner Herzog comments tellingly to the painting of Henning von Gierke:
„As if a whole world transmuted into silence in front of us, so do the pictures of Henning von Gierke affect the viewer. It is a silence without comparison, that charges the rooms; it flows through doors opening into corridors, and floods through open windows, from there, where vast landscapes open. From everywhere it's flowing, this silence, meeting in the faces of his figures and embraces us in this gathering. And that with a forcefulness, I only know from a few old Dutchmen.“
Werner Herzog
A golden Stream leads the visitor from the ground floor to the first upper floor ... This upper floor presents itself as a collective and walkable installation arranged for the areal situation: In several compartments, which have to be crossed in a certain sequence, the visitor walks along a curling and widening golden stream like on a expedition through „constructs of ideas“ of Henning von Gierke. After a look at the Rhine which runs along the base of the museum (through a window especially made accessible for the exhibition) you will discover something astonishing ...
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| "Amor and Psyche III", 140 x 140 cm, 2005 (Öl auf Leinwand) |
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| Model of the Installation on the first Floor |
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Catalogue Cover - Im Widerschein des Traums (In the Reflex of Dream)
2007, 160 x 120 cm
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| "The Creation of Earth", oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, 1999 |
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from the series Rhine-Float,
2008, altogether 40 x 800 cm, 1 of 21 pictures |
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