Olaf Nicolai: MARX

A 24-hour screening throughout 16 institutions around the world
September 21, 12pm –September 22, 12pm (local time)

Participating institutions in order of time zones:
Times Museum, Guangzhou / MAUDI, Tbilisi / Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem / Garage Museum for Contemporary Art, Moskwa / Goethe Institut Sofia, Sofia / Locus Athens, Athina / Gropius Bau - Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin / Haus der Kunst, München / Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Chemnitz / MACRO. Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, Rome / MGML. Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana, Ljubljana / Cinémathèque de Tanger, Tanger / ICA. Institute Of Contemporary Arts, London / Fogo Island Arts, Fogo Island / SUBTE. Centro De Exposiciones, Montevideo / Villa Aurora, Los Angeles

“Nobody knows in spite of everything whether the universe is counting backwards while we count faithfully forward.”
—Inger Christensen

In 1971, a sculpture designed by Lew Kerbel depicting the face of Karl Marx was inaugurated in Chemnitz, then Karl-Marx-Stadt. Kerbel was known for his monumental statues, such as the Soviet Memorial in Treptower Park, Berlin. The Marx monument is located in the city center of Chemnitz and is still a landmark of the city.

The film MARX (24 hours, color, sound, 2021) portrays the monument in a very specific way: With a single, fixed camera shot, the statue was filmed for 24 hours starting at 12 noon on September 21, 2020. The chosen frame deliberately shows only part of the monumental face, with light reflecting off its abstracted and sharply contoured bronze surface.

The 24-hour close-up transforms the political icon into a landscape, subject to constant change under the surrounding light conditions. The soundtrack reproduces the sounds of this environment without revealing the corresponding events or actors. In addition to the sounds of traffic and passers-by, the chimes of the nearby town hall come to the fore.

The shooting happened in the 24 hours prior to the autumn equinox, covering the time in which the earth and the sun are moving towards the constellation, when day and night are the same length. It is now also screened during the same period, in different locations. In each instance, the images travel around the globe and can be seen in different time zones. Each location begins the screening at 12 noon local time. The fact that the narrated or filmed time coincides perfectly with the duration, i.e. the screening time, is emphasized by the chimes of the town hall clock. These stylistic devices come together to create a kind of time capsule. The structure of the screening creates not only a kind of a “cinematic sundial“—it is also a proposal on forms of cooperation and togetherness, based on sharing time and taking care of it.

With MARX, Olaf Nicolai (b. 1962 in Halle/Saale) pointedly poses the question of the course of time, its measurement and meaning in both physical and philosophical terms. Nicolai grew up in Karl-Marx-Stadt and is thus biographically connected to the film’s leitmotif.

The film ends with the quote from the Danish poet Inger Christensen cited above.

MARX
Camera: Volker Sattel, Thilo Schmidt
Sound / sound editor: Jakob Braito.
Cutting: Olaf Nicolai, Patrik Thomas

Coordination of screening event: Luisa Seipp, Curatorial Fellow, Haus der Kunst

Designed and produced as part of the project Gegenwarten I Presences 2020, organized by the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz. The worldwide 24-hour-premiere is made possible by the support of Haus der Kunst, Munich; Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin; Knust Kunz Gallery Editions; Stiftung Federkiel & Christian Jacobs; Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundationand), Stadt Chemnitz.