Sven Marquardt. Götterdämmerung. The Twilight of the Gods

The Cultural Association Office of Arts, in the prestigious Palazzo Saluzzo Paesana in Turin, presents the exhibition "Götterdämmerung. The Twilight of the Gods", solo show of the German artist Sven Marquardt by Enrico Debandi and Eugenio Viola.
 The exhibition is part of the cultural program that will join Torino in 2015 to the German capital and will be inaugurated on November 9, 2014, twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9, 1989). The exhibition is open until January 12, 2015, is divided into two venues: the Master Apartment Palazzo Saluzzo Paesana and the crypts of the former cemetery of San Pietro in Vincoli.
 For the first time in Italy in a comprehensive manner, the exhibition presents to the public the work of Sven Marquardt, a time photographer "illegal", now recognized photographic artist as well as the undisputed leader of the underground scene of the reunified German capital and front-man of the Berghain, Berlin's most famous club in the world.
The exhibition consists of 60 photographic works, run with analogue and photographic print "fine-art" in black and white, telling the evolution and socio-cultural transformations of Berlin from the Cold War to the present. Sven Marquardt, witness to the changes that have crossed the Germany of the past thirty years, like eternity through his photographs a timeless personal microcosm: the subjects portrayed and the evocative atmospheres are confronted with the majesty of the myth, the legend through the history. Real memories and life moments chasing each other in their immediacy not built, offering sometimes in ostentatious and shameless winking intimacy, in constant expectation of an intrusion on the part of the viewer-voyeur.
The exhibition takes its title from "Twilight of the Gods", in German Götterdämmerung, but improper expression usual in Norse mythology, used to indicate the end of the world, the fateful day of the great catastrophe, the final battle against the dark powers of the Gods that will annihilate the enemy. At the end of the nineteenth century, Richard Wagner elaborates this saga in the text of his music drama Die Götterdämmerung, the fourth part of the famous tetralogy of the Ring of the Nibelung, which is the epitome of aesthetic conception of the great composer, evocative of human dramas and mythical of sublimated love, returning to a legendary heroic past. In a completely different context, Luchino Visconti recovers the impetus Wagner in The Fall of the Gods (1969), a film in which engages against the backdrop of the tragic story of a family of industrialists, Essenbeck, the history of two years of German destiny: the year 1933-1934, which saw the end of one world and the inexorable rise of Hitler to power.
"Sven Marquardt, like Wagner," says the curator Eugenio Viola, "can not conceive of the past inverato myth as history, but as this that lends itself to explain the past, instilling in his characters melancholy, silent anti-heroes of Olympus for now dissoltosi ever, a universal spirit in which the anguish of the ancient gods identified with our anxieties, our passions, our own ideals. His portraits are characterized by an acute psychological insight, playing on the idea of impermanence and suggest further meanings, beyond the comforting patina of the compositions well calibrated and characterized by a skilful use of black and white, strong chiaroscuro ".
"The double exhibition of the exhibition is designed to create an itinerary full of suggestions, interacting with the structural peculiarities of the two locations identified, conveniently located 800 meters away from each other," says the curator Henry Debandi. "In the apartment of Palazzo Saluzzo Paesana Manor will host large-format works, lavish and hedonistic content, arranged according to a criterion of Baroque paintings, while in the former cemetery of San Pietro in Vincoli, and in particular in its crypts - open to public for the first time on this occasion - will be presented photographs that tell the Berlin underground and dark, dear to the artist's poetry. "
In addition to the 60 works on display in the two exhibition venues, a further work of the artist will be on display in the lobby of the hotel Golden Palace for the duration of the event.
The reception of visitors at the two venues will be built in partnership with the European Institute of Design (Torino), which will offer students the School of Photography at the School of Visual Communication, IED chance to meet with the work of 'artist and its enjoyment by the public.
On the occasion of the exhibition, a monographic catalog in three languages ??- Italian, German, English - published by Skira, the most comprehensive to date on the work of Sven Marquardt.
Sven Marquardt (East Berlin, 1962) lives and works in Berlin. He trained as an assistant cameraman at the DEFA (the studios of public ownership of the GDR), where, in collaboration with the photographer Rudolf Schäfer, iconic figure in East Germany, began in the early eighties his career, publishing his first photographs in magazines "Der Sonntag "and" Das Magazin ". Parallel to the work of fashion photographer, Marquardt began to document the underground scene of East Berlin. After the fall of the wall, Marquardt is immersed in club culture capital of the reunified magmatic and stops for a few years to photograph. Subsequently begins to work with photography, is continuing its research staff both in the fashion world (her photographic campaigns for Levi's, made during the Fashion Week in Berlin in 2011, and in 2014 for Hugo Boss). Since 2007, Sven Marquardt contributes significantly to the definition of the image of the record label "Ostgut Ton" of the Berghain. His photographs have been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany and abroad.
"Götterdämmerung. The Twilight of the Gods" is part of "Torino meets Berlin" and is made ??possible thanks to the support of the Foundation for Culture and Turin under the auspices of the Piedmont Region, the City of Turin and the Goethe-Institut Turin.
The exhibition will be open from 9 November 2014 and 12 January 2015 from Tuesday to Sunday from 15.00 to 19.00 or by appointment by calling the following number: 347 0103021. To organize events, and exclusive visits beyond the normal hours of the exhibition, visit the websites www .palazzosaluzzopaesana.it or www.goetterdaemmerung.it.

Vai alla guida d'arte di Turin