Video production: Carolin Röckelein

 

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War
February 1–April 6, 2019
Berlin

Andro Wekua’s work strides powerfully and forcefully in our direction – while constantly eluding us. As visitors we find ourselves caught between contradictory movements, and the result is a tension that we cannot easily escape. This accounts for some of the intensity and quality of Wekua’s work, but not all. Much of it has to do with the artist’s way of weaving images together and playing them against one another, and the undertow this creates. The draw of this maelstrom is narrative and cinematic in nature, although his films in particular tend toward abstraction.

 

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Take Wekua’s latest film All Is Fair in Dreams and War (2018). Running just over five minutes, the film unfolds before our eyes in the form of a central composition (or rather a Rorschach test). It is arranged around a central axis, a burning palm tree, which appears in the middle between 1 minute 54 and 3 minutes 14. It is a single (and the longest) uncut take, around which a series of shorter 'before' and 'after' sequences appear on the 'left' and 'right,' respectively. 'Before' (or left), we see a moon, sky, seagulls, palm trees, cars, city, dance, nature, water. 'After' (or right) shows a city, gambling, movement, water, sky, night, time, city, darkness. This triptych is held together and varied with a metallic soundscape by Berlin musician Jörg Hiller.

All Is Fair in Dreams and War appears dreamy and melancholic at first. But the true meaning of the film lies in its symmetry: how the before and the after group around the now, how the past and future form a space called the present that, like the palm tree, is forever burning. All Is Fair in Dreams and War brings all this to light in just five minutes.

Daniel Baumann
Kunsthalle Zürich

 

Installation Views
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin
Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, February 1–April 6, 2019

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, February 1–April 6, 2019
Photo: Ingo Kniest

Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin
Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, February 1–April 6, 2019

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, February 1–April 6, 2019
Photo: Ingo Kniest

Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin
Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, February 1–April 6, 2019

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, February 1–April 6, 2019
Photo: Ingo Kniest

Details
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, February 1–April 6, 2019
Photo: Ingo Kniest

Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, February 1–April 6, 2019
Photo: Ingo Kniest

Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, February 1–April 6, 2019
Photo: Ingo Kniest

Details
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Exhibited Works
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin
Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018
More views

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018
Single channel projection, color, stereo
5:05 min

More views
Details
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018
Single channel projection, color, stereo
5:05 min

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018 (film still)

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018 (film still)

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018 (film still)

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin
Andro Wekua – All is Fair in Dreams and War – Berlin

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018 (film still)

Andro Wekua
All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018
Details
icon_fullscreen
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