Jennifer Allora

Calzadilla (ART)

This artist's book presents a selection of images that Allora & Calzadilla have collected over the course of a decade. None of these images are documentation or research for any particular work. Rather, these images present a parallel component to their practice. They are presented in this book as a succession of pairings, organised in a non-illustrative and ultimately intuitive arrangement. This series of pictures can be understood as an independent, intuitive composition, which offers insight into the artists' thinking and methodology. Arranged in pairs of pictures, this is a sequence of paintings, illustrations and photographs, which don't follow any illustrative or conclusive order, but rather reveal a contradictory system of interests and motivations. Jennifer Allora (*1974, USA) and Guillermo Calzadilla (*1971, Cuba) are based in San Juan, Puerto Rico and, have been working collaboratively since 1995.

Allora & Calzadilla & Etcetera

Beatrix Ruf

Guillermo Calzadilla

This text is the culmination of a collaboration between five institutions that recently presented exhibitions of the work of Allora & Calzadilla.

Allora & Calzadilla

Carsten Ruhl

In their work Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla link different media: sculpture, video, sound and performance. At the Kunstmuseen Krefeld in 2009, the artists showed two video projections. A Man Screaming Is Not a Dancing Bear (2008) that focused on the situation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. How To Appear Invisible (2009) thematised the moment in Berlin when the Palast der Republik at the end of 2008 was finally torn down and this architectural monument from the former GDR vanished. In a pictorially forceful way, Allora & Calzadilla take up the controversial discussions on city planning, historical awareness and political responsibility that led to the events in New Orleans and Berlin. This catalogue highlights these places and their history in the form of an impressive pictorial collage, and the accompanying texts introduce the art of Allora & Calzadilla and examine the Berlin Schlossplatz in its capacity as a 'utopian locality'.

Slavoj Žižek

Julienne Lorz

In the former honorary hall of Haus der Kunst, Allora Calzadilla present a work that addresses the history of this space - the venue of Hitler's notorious speeches on cultural policies. At the centre is the fourth movement of Beethoven's Symphony No.9: The Choral. Apart from many other - ideologically contradictory - contexts, the Ode to Joy was held in high esteem by the Nazi regime and played on Hitler's birthday. Allora Calzadilla are interested in the inner contradictions of the composition and the use and misuse of music. A pianist stands in the middle of a prepared piano into which a hole was sawed - he plays the keyboard from the inside, as it were, so that the composition is varied. This book is an integral part of the work, in which the artists publish their entire researched material. English and German text.

Jennifer Allora

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