Gintersdorfer/ Klaßen, Dirk Meinzer, Henrik Schrat
AFRIQUE IL Y A FOI
Featuring: Franck Edmond Yao and James Senare
Dec 16 2006 - Jan 26, 2007

In the Galerie Olaf Stüber, the artists Dirk Meinzer and Henrik Schrat will encounter theatre by Gintersdorfer/Klaßen. Visual art is transformed into a subject of negotiation, initiating exchange.

Frank Edmond Yao is a dancer, performer and actor. He comes from Paris, originally from the Ivory Coast. He represents strength. Confrontation. Yao is the star of the opening night, together with James Senare and other actors from the Gintersdorf/Klaßen theatre.

Yao will encounter Dirk Meinzer. Inside a quarantine tent, Dirk Meinzer will show figures made of animal excrement, fabrics, pictures and videos. Many of the things he does are based on his experiences in Africa, in the swamps of Tanzania. In search of the siren’s myth, he succumbed to their songs. One wants to believe what he is saying. Together, Meinzer and Yao will make pictures and objects float.

Yao will be confronted with Henrik Schrat’s provocative objects and they will ignite him. Yao is flammable. He has something to say about this, because he has lived it. Or the provocation will fail. In this case, one will hear “I am tired” in French and Yao will retire.

Whatever Yao does, James Senare and his friends will convert Schrat’s objects, which they perceive as “Truc de Blanc” (white man’s stuff). Into something that one can use directly, something practical, a bench or something like that. And the objects that have not been converted appear all the more non-committed.

At 22:30 Gintersdorfer/Klaßen will show the video “Verlieren” – (Lose): a German-French-African team visit stars from the Ivory Coast in their Parisian flats. They play “contact pieces” in front of tower blocks in the suburbs of Paris and Marseille. The small shows, which also function and are visible for spectators living on the 15th floor, are combined with text and movements.