Gisela Weimann

“Suffered injustice and the violation of one’s own, felt to be right thinking is deposited like a sediment at the bottom of the self-awareness of nations and individuals and repeatedly leading to armed conflicts. Another, ongoing conflict is that between the sexes. Currently this is particularly evident in the radical Islamic countries, where women continue to be part of the spoils of war and objects of male despotism who are denied education and self-determination.

The work series is inspired by my investigation of Adalbert von Chamisso’s time-critical narrative from 1813: “Peter Schlemihl’s wondrous story”. The impoverished Schlemihl is blinded by wealth and power and sells his shadow and his soul to the devil in return for a bag that is always filled with gold ducats. In the following description of his fate his unwisely abandoned shadow becomes a synonym for the materialism and soullessness of his time. Schlemihl pays for all the gold with the loss of his beloved, he is threatened and despised by the poorest as a shadowless stranger and expelled from the human community. The narrative is a cautionary parable not to sacrifice love, inner satisfaction and spiritual values for hunger for power and material greed.

My project comprises pigment prints, videos and a wall film in a total installation.”

Gisela Weimann (Bad Blankenburg* 1943, lives in Berlin) studied painting at the University of the Arts Berlin, printmaking and experimental photography at the Royal College of Art in London and film at the San Francisco Art Institute. Thereafter, until 1981, she lived in Tepoztlán/Mexico. In 1997 she was a scholarship holder at the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. Her life is marked by numerous journeys, study and teaching abroad. In 2002 she was awarded the Critics’ Prize for Visual Arts of the Association of German Critics e V.
Professor Dr. Stefanie Endlich writes in her laudation:

“…The breadth and variety of her artistic forms of expression and working techniques range from painting and printmaking, photography and film, mail art installations and environments to multimedia projects, events, performances and art in public spaces. She leaps over the boundaries between artistic genres by means of intercultural and interdisciplinary cooperation with artists from theatre, music and film, as well as with researchers from various disciplines…”

Her work has been shown internationally including exhibitions, sound installations and multimedia performances, e.g.: “Une mer deux rivages” MAC.A, Asilah/Morocco (2014-15); “My shadow remains”, solo exhibition, Brno House of Art/Czech Republic (2014); “Beginning End Here Now”, solo exhibition, Kunsthalle Brennabor, Brandenburg an der Havel (2013); “World in Flames”, Casablanca Biennale/Morocco (2012); “Memorias”, Palacio de la Mosquera, Arenas de San Pedro/Spain (2011); “La Notte Blu”, Teatro Fondamenta Nuove, Venice/Italy and galerie futura , Berlin (2010); “Four Winds Ballet I”, Body Navigation Festival, St. Petersburg/Russia and “Espacios Mediterráneos”, Casa de las Conchas, Salamanca/Spain (2008); “Transatlantic Impulses”, Martin-Gropius-Museum in Berlin (2005); “Opera for 4 Buses”, Museum Island Festival Berlin (2001).

www.giselaweimann.de