The Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art will be represented with a book presentation at documenta 14 in Kassel on Tuesday, September 12: Marcel Schwierin, together with Israeli artist Roee Rosen, will present the new publication Lebe und Stirb als Eva Braun und andere intime Geschichten, which was produced on the occasion of Rosen’s first German survey exhibition. The volume, published by Sternberg Press, is edited by the curators and directors of the Edith-Russ-Haus, Edit Molnár and Marcel Schwierin. The event begins at 7 p.m. in the Press and Information Center Kassel.
At the center of the bilingual book Live and Die as Eva Braun and other intimate stories are three provocative texts between reality and fiction, historical and political criticism, humor and eroticism: Lebe und Stirb als Eva Braun (1995-97) leads the viewer or reader through a scenario of virtual reality in the role of Hitler’s lover. Today, the work is considered groundbreaking in terms of the representation of trauma, National Socialism and the Holocaust. In the film “The Confessions of Roee Rosen” (2008), three illegal immigrant workers act as representatives for the character “Roee Rosen”. Their monologues are designed as confusing subversions in the tradition of literary confessions. The third text, the screenplay for Rosen’s work Hilarious (2010), presents itself as a dysfunctional comedy set in the twin towers of the collapsing World Trade Center.
The texts are supplemented by short political-aesthetic essays by Rosen to theoretically underpin his method. The volume concludes with a conversation between Roee Rosen and the historian Moshe Zuckermann, an astute critic of the political instrumentalization of the Holocaust.
Rosen’s latest film The Dust Channel (2016) can also be seen at Palais Bellevue and his work The Blind Merchant (1989-91) at Grimmwelt Kassel as part of the documenta. Schwierin and Rosen have also already presented the publication at the documenta in Athens.
The Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art showed the solo exhibition Roee Rosen: Live and Die as Eva Braun and Other Intimate Stories from January to April 2016.