The Sting of the Scorpion

An exquisite cadaver based on Buñuel’s “L’Age d’Or”, cinematic exhibition course

Der Stachel des Skorpions, 1. Episode Tobias Zielony, Filmstill, © Tobias Zielony

The film “L’Age d’Or” (1930) by the surrealist Luis Buñuel was a pioneering work which prepared the way for the integration of film into the fine arts. The film contains various scenes which criticize civil society and its double standards. The project “The Sting of the Scorpion” invited six contemporary international artists to reinterpret the film and artistically respond to one of the key themes.
Tobias Zielony examined the film’s opening scene, in which the living conditions of scorpions are described in almost documentary fashion, and draw an analogy to the toxic self-destruction of heroin addicts. The Australian-American female artists’ group “Chicks on Speed” developed a modern version of group self-portrayals in response to the bandit scene in the film. The video artist Keren Cytter from Israel examined the film’s love scenes, which the Berlin-based artist Julian Rosefeldt developed further from his perspective. The conclusion has been developed by John Bock who connected the various sequences into a walk-through film presented in six rooms.
The internationally acclaimed artists collaborated to combine their sculptural, performative, cinematic and musical approaches into one major Gesamtkunstwerk. Against the backdrop of current social developments, the participants drew up an artistic manifesto which assessed the validity of the term “golden age” with regard to contemporary works of art.

Artistic directors: Marc Weis, Martin De Mattia (M+M)
Artists: Tobias Zielony, Chicks on Speed (ES), M+M, Keren Cytter (IL), Julian Rosefeldt, John Bock

Contact

Museum Villa Stuck

Prinzregentenstr. 60

81675 München

www.villastuck.de (external link, opens in a new window)