Der wüste BAAL der Auferstandene – Eine Hommage an Rainer Werner Fassbinder
A romantic anarchist, an enfant terrible, he was radically subjective, self-destructive, driven by restless productivity—the creative engine, the heart of the New German Cinema—Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945 – 1982) is regarded worldwide as one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers of the post-war era.
Our exhibition The Desert BAAL the Resurrected – A Tribute to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, inspired primarily by Volker Schlöndorff's 1969 film Baal, which was subsequently banned from performance by Brecht's heirs for 44 years, with Fassbinder in the lead role, focuses on the literary character of Baal from Bertolt Brecht's first play, written in 1918, and the connections and parallels between this character and the artist Rainer Werner Fassbinder. "What Brecht's heirs and we at the time did not see was how much Fassbinder was actually in Brecht's Baal," wrote Volker Schlöndorff in his autobiography Licht, Schatten und Bewegung. Mein Leben und meine Filme.
Rainer Fetting, the key figure among the painters who gained international recognition under the (unloved) label "Neue Wilde" in the late 1970s and early 1980s, expressing fundamental themes such as sexuality and subjective experience, as well as the urban landscape of divided Berlin and the almost mythically glorified nightlife in the shadow of the Wall through vibrant and sensual painting, has created a stunning body of work consisting of 15 pieces for this exhibition. Young artists like the Brit Neal Fox and the Italian Giuseppe Gonella have engaged with Fassbinder/Baal in their own unique and original ways, while the Estonian painter Ivar Kaasik brings Rainer Werner Fassbinder together on a canvas with Arthur Rimbaud. Volker Schlöndorff, who found an ideal Baal in Fassbinder as the lead actor, enriches the exhibition with 17 scene and production photos from his film, which is finally accessible again after decades.
Our exhibition The Desert BAAL the Resurrected – A Tribute to Rainer Werner Fassbinder takes place not only in parallel to the Berliner Festspiele's Theatertreffen, which this year focuses on Fassbinder, but also alongside the major exhibition Fassbinder – NOW, organized by the Deutsches Filminstitut / Deutsche Filmmuseum in cooperation with the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation, running from May 6 to August 23, 2015, at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin.
Opening reception, Thursday, April 30, 2015, 7 – 9 PM.