ANTJE MAJEWSKI | MATHILDE TER HEIJNE
When the snake is carried through the crowd as in a procession, in the »procession« in Antje Majewski’s film with the same title four girls are by themselves. Also here it is about a form of self empowerment, about free role play, playing with clothes and requisites, teenager emphatize through play with the role of the adult woman. It is some kind of continuation of „Teenage Pantomime“ (2002), a series of photographs published as a book, which Antje Majewski took as a teenager of the sometimes pretty crazy costumes and masquerades that her sister and she obviously had fun with. The actors of „Prozession“ are, so to say, the next generation, the niece of the artist and her friends. They wear colourful, sequined dresses, as well as, colourful paper objects that are finally placed into the water like »sacrifices«. In various cultures exists the old ritual to pass paper objects to the water. They can be presents for a goddess of the sea or serve in rememberance of the dead. The storyline and single actions, whose perfomance the girls mainly determined themsleves, doesn’t follow a ritual or religious »purpose«. They are mainly based, like the role playing and (fancy) dress game, on the approval of joint action which in particular helps enhance the joy of life beyond defined goals and exploitation interests. In this sense, the paper objects Antja Majewski created, and thus are considered as proper »works« of the artist, are not fed into the art market. The passing on to the water represents, economically speaking, a deliberate waste. Ludwig Seyfarth |
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