Artist statement
In my work I inquire into the relations of image, body, space, sound and time. Any of these aspects may be the point of artistic departure, and will be associated with another aspect to gain contrast. Thus, a static picture is being manipulated by a moving body, a medieval motif is combined with modern image projection technology, masculine poses meet a spoken text about a father conflict. Aesthetic tension arises that has to be worked out meticulously.
Coming from video installation and sculpture I began to explore the body as a subject-object. Singing and music has been at the heart of this bodily work, and I compose, record and perform music, thus performing ironic fragments of a romantic "Gesamtkunstwerk".
This Wagnerian term hints at aesthetics in general, a field that is fruitful and dear to me. I always liked to combine theory and practice.
I am inspired by the approaches of media archaeology and deconstruction, and try to restage the old as new and vice versa. The sacral and the artistic are common themes in my work, leading to studies in iconography as the appearance of the body in the image in history. I am especially interested in how sex and gender are staged in historical imagery, and in the concept of trauma and its medial, pictorial and dicoursive aspects. Some of my works can be seen as pop-cultural mash-ups.
The arts to me are a field of live, performative knowledge production. While this complexity of information may be useless in the scientific laboratory, it incites aesthetic reflection that has proven to be productive for discourse.
In live performances as well as in static installations, I want to create " unease " . If visitors feel discomforted, more in a somewhat subtle sense than "in-yerface", I may have achieved something.
Benja Riegenroth
born 1982 in Heidelberg, Germany
2018-2021 master class student with Prof. Dieter Kiessling at Kunsthochschule Mainz
2008-2017 studies of fine arts, philosophy and pedagogics at Kunsthochschule Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz and Technical University Brno, Czech Republic
2021
"Schaufenstervideokunstschaufenster",
Galerie für Junge Kunst, Trier
2018
"Der Schein trügt" Festival, Oststern, Frankfurt
2017
"Neustart", Kunsthochschule Mainz
2015
group exhibitions (selection)
2025
"Åpen scene " , Kulturhus Perleporten, Honningsvåg, Norway
2024
"coexist", Mittelrheinmuseum, Koblenz
2022
"Alles Mögliche", Kunstverein Ludwigshafen
"Mensch und Zeit", Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz
"Mainzer Ansichten", Kunsthalle Mainz
2014
vkunst VI "Mon ami, l'image", Frankfurt "Open Expo", Tuchfabrik, Trier "All Inclusive", Atelier Badstraße, Berlin
2013
"Sportsgeist", Malkasten Düsseldorf "Wagner in Wiesbaden", Projektraum PENG Mainz
2012
"Vermessen", Galerie 52, Folkwang Universität der Künste, Essen "Balmorale", Schloss Balmoral, Bad Ems
2011
"bring your own shadow", Caos Gallery, Venice
2010
"Frames from the edge", Galerie Marion Scharmann, Cologne
2009
"Full House", Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt scholarships and grants
2023
Residency at Saline Royale, Arc-et-Senans, France
2021/22
Kickstarter grant, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Germany
2021
2 x project grant by Foundation for Culture, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
2014
Residency at Künstlerstadt Kalbe, Kalbe an der Milde, Germany
05/02/2025
Luxury 2025 performance
The performer sings a fragile soul song about freedom and loneliness. His voice moves from deeper pitch to falsetto towards the end. Bodily signifiers are ambiguous regarding gender. The performance oscillates between authenticity and glam.
Song and performance are part of the ongoing project "Benjasch" that mixes and stages aspects of pop culture and singer/songwriter.
Nobody needs me / I must be luxury
Nobody heeds me / must be bad company
Nobody holds me / I must be a butterfly
Nobody told me / What it's like to be free
performance at Perleporten Kulturhus, Honningsvåg, Norway,
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Load and Support
Stütze und Last
2024
Installation
A ramshackle peep-box reveals views of architecture and bodies in cross-hairs. The piece is a study on "trauma culture" in a western european context.
5 installation view from "coexist", Mittelrheinmuseum, Koblenz, 2024, (picture left: Markus Ackermann)
Gestern
Yesterday
2023
Mixed Media
The cycle "Yesterday" combines paper, drawing and writing with traces of use like coffee marks and body fluids.
Yesterday
2023
Mixed Media
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stills from video documentation at Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2021
Emergence
Emergenz
2021
single channel video duration: 3:37 min
A body comes forth and disappears in a dark video image. The lighting is a torch that the performer is dancing with. The autofocus of the camera adds another layer of movement to the picture.
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Laocoon
Laokoon
2021
Performance
duration: 15 min. approx.
The piece is a study on The naked male body. The performance takes place in a projection of the antique sculpture "Laokoon". The performer's body interacts with the image in diverse ways, thus playing on the dialectics of foreground and background. He takes poses from yoga, gymnastics and art history.
At some point, he begins a monotonous chanting and auto-flagellation.
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still from video documentation at Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2021
Quarantine
Q ä e
ection, sound, loop min approx.
ale figure carries out awkward s with stacked TV sets. The ears a gas mask, the TV ow details of body parts. The ranged in the manner of a chiaroscuro. A shrill and ound track intensifies the fe impression. rall picture, the human body chnical additions merge into forms. The devices act as a as a occultation and on of the body.
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Resolution
Auflösung
2018
video projection, sound, loop duration: 10 min approx.
A video projection shows the corner of a room in a crooked perspective. The picture elements seem contradictory: A body in a loincloth, his head “cut off” by the picture frame; a baroque monument; and a laptop computer. The head in the computer sings a choral in German about aesthetic impression. More voices join. The text is about the resolution of disharmony into harmony.
The chorale is in German. Text and translation can be attached to a wall.
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video still; above: installation view from Kunsthochschule Mainz
G d Voyage ahrt
ance
: 20 min approx.
ormer with long hair and a kneels down to a resounding By manipulating a video r, he makes a picture “ emerge ” . a sacral interior with a baroque al monument. The performer osition in the projection and he pose of a baroque saint. He hopeful song about departure. e mood changes: An industrial oom begins and the performer kind of shadow play with lots of ut at the end resolution is found ings a circular canon made up of ongs sung before.
The piece is about the technical picture, body and ecstasy in sacral and pop culture. The songs are in German.
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still from video documentation at Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2018
digital print on paper, 13x20 cm
Permutation 1
2017 paper, charcoal, 300 x 150 cm
installation view, Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2017
Permutation 2
2017 paper, charcoal, 69,5 x 139 cm
installation view, Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2017
Permutation 3
2017 paper, charcoal, 69 x 139 cm
installation view, Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2017
Permutation 4
2017 paper, charcoal, 69 x 139 cm
installation view, Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2017
Permutations
exhibition view, Kunsthochschule Mainz 2017
Permutation 5 / The Conclusion
Permutation 5 / Der Abschluss
2017 sculpture
floor screed, 200 x 100 x 10 cm
installation view, Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2017
Work
Arbeit 2014 performance duration: 40 min approx.
A half naked, long haired man carries out diverse movements with technical tools in the light of a video projector. He amplifies the mechanical sounds uced by these tools. In the video ground the same person is shown in cloth balancing a metal bar. performer finally sits down on his fier and pulls a shopping bag over ead. The bag is from a widespread an discounter brand. He sings a about work to a pounding dance m.
show is a sarcastic study on male ography of work and the coercion of ty and self-exploitation in the re industry.
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still from video documentation at Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2021
Home Parlour
Heimatstube
2014
installation, performance, site specific duration: 15 min approx.
This performance-in-installation was developed in a small town in SaxonyAnhalt. It is comprised of found and acquired objects that deal with socialist and nazi aspects of the local history. Both ideologies have a certain after-life in the area of former socialist Germany. The artist gave a talk about the objects and their connection that gets more and more absurd. At the end he takes a broom and sweeps the audience out of the room, and the past under the imaginary carpet.
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documentation pictures, Kalbe an der Milde, 2014
Before You Accuse Me
2014
video projection, sound, loop duration 5 min approx.
A large scale projection of a church interior shows altar, organ and a culprit. The figure of a saint is located on the latter. Suddenly the holy figure has a guitar in his hands and plays the blues classic song "Before You Accuse Me".
Genuinely white European baroque aesthetics meet afro american musical tradition. The song is about jealousy and the search for unconditional love, here, seemingly, directed at God by a dissatisfied disciple.
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Apotheosis
Verklärung
2014 performance
duration: 1 hour
A person seems to be sitting in meditation on a table. But his head is hidden in a plastic bag that is fixed around his neck. A computer shows a head that recites a text by German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey. The words are about the classic poetic concept of “resolution” and that the splendour of man can only be visible in suffering. The text may be attached somewhere or handed out.
documentation pictures, Kalbe an der Milde, 2014
Flight Captain Fliegerkapitän
2013 performance
duration: 7 min approx.
A long-haired man with sunglasses and naked torso steps to a covered object on the ground. He takes a pose of military salutation, then starts to sing a nostalgic song about flying and melancholy. Suddenly he pulls away the black cover from the object beside him and puts it over his head. A TV set is revealed, showing a portrait of the performer. Together, the TV head and the covered person sing a nursery rhyme on the act of disappearing.
The song then moves on to the ascension of the flight captain into the sky. The performer lifts the TV sets up high. Then the procession ends with the exit of the performer.
Melancholy and martial aesthetics are fused together into an ironic short trip into recent German culture history.
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documentation picture, Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2013
Mainz, I Was Just Incidentally Here, Pt. 1
Mainz, ich war halt zufällig grad hier Teil 1
2013 performance
duration: 5 min approx.
A song poet gets out of a limousine at a crowded square in the city of Mainz. He sings a defamation song about the town located in a german wine growing area. The text takes advantage of the homophonic words „Mainz“ and „meins“ (eng. „mine“).
„modern or mouldering / is just the same / wine springs from foul grapes, too / go home, you corpse / go watch TV / she is far / you are always close / mine is the best / Yours is just crap “
stills from video documentation, Mainz, 2013
Death on Lanzarote
Tod auf Lanzarote
2013 video, sound, loop duration: 2:32 min
A TV picture shows a person with a notebook computer on his lap. His head is out of the picture. In the right part of the picture, colorful dots are dancing.
The laptop screen then shows a second person with a guitar. This one, too, has his head cut off by the picture frame. The „band“ plays a song with guitar accompaniment. The song has several verses about death and fast food.
The video refers to strict formal aesthetics of early video performances, but also to the look of music videos from the 1980s and 1990s.
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Mainz, I Was Just Incidentally Here, Pt. 2
Mainz, ich war halt zufällig grad hier Teil 2
2013
video installation, sound, loop duration: 3 min approx.
A window or a screen projection shows a fragmented picture of a man whistling, singing and clapping his hands. The voice is hardly recognizable due to digital compression. „Mainz, I was just her by accident / when psychosis broke out / Mainz, I will surely stay with you / standing here as a champignon“
In an outdoor installation, the projection spreads out to the opposing wall, which produces a flickering facade decoration. The place seems forlorn, an anti dance floor.
installation view, Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2013
Fly Agaric Fliegenpilz 2012
performance
duration: 3:30 min approx.
A person sings a duet with a laptop computer. The melody is a hypnotic singsong with echo effects and monotonous instrumentation. The picture frame of the device shows a partial head that obviously sings the recorded voice.
The subject matter of the song is a nature scene, in the center of which is a red fly agaric. The verses are a lyrical étude on the word pair certainty (ger. „Gewissheit“) and conscience (ger. „Gewissen“) which have a common word root in german.
The process is similar to an incantation ritual and takes place sitting, standing or walking, depending on the spatial situation of the performance. It can be complemented by further gestures, such as the handing out of the lyrics of the
documentation pictures, Kunsthochschule Mainz, 2012
Adam 2012
video, sound, loop duration: 1:02 min
In the projection, a naked long haired man moves in another projection of a forest view. He is being covered or denuded by the picture. He seems to stretch for a flying leaf and makes dance like movements.
A dreamy guitar score and an increased speed of movement give the video a nostalgic feel, alluding to movies and art of Germany's early 20th century youth movement. The video should ideally be shown in the exterior as a back projection.
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video still; above: installation view v-kunst Frankfurt, 2014
Day
Work
tagwerk 2012
video, sound duration: 5:26 min
A montage of picture motifs, spoken text and sounds. A narrator revolves around himself lyrically. Pictorial cutaways and occultations correspond to textual " asceses " or "ellipses" that enable definitions of motifs and thoughts in the first place. Thus, the artist I is represented as a tragic genius of renouncement and amputation.
The texts are in German.
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The Blind Leading the Blind Blindensturz
2012
video installation, loop duration: 1 min approx.
A monitor at chest height shows animated pages from the book "The Blind Leading the Blind" by Gert Hofmann. The pages change faster and faster. Through massive digital video compression the picture dissolves into block-like structures, also referred to as digital „artifacts“. This renders the text completely unreadable. The algorithm behind this effect looks for similar color areas in the single frames. So every frame contains information from previous or later frames. The cinematic turning of the pages leads to a new relation between semantics and time.
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link
above: installation view "Balmorale", Bad Ems, 2012; right: video stills
Zarathustra 2011
video installation, sound duration: 22:52 min
A large scale video picture shows the close up of two hands turning the pages of „Thus spoke Zarathustra“ by german philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The monotonous process inhibits any immersion, while the speed prevents the viewer from reading more than some fragments of the text. The traditional book is, as a medium, confronted with high definition video, resulting in a clash of two contrary modes of perception.
video still; above: installation view from Technical University Brno, Czech Republic, 2011
"Gemeinde Brünn"–Merchandise
2011 installation
cardboard beer coasters, metal badges, poster site specific
This installation relates to the Czech city of Brno. It is to be shown in a display window or showcase, or any other museum like manner. The main elements are cardboard beer coasters, metal badges and a poster. They all show circle motifs with the inscription „Gemeinde Brünn“. These are photographs of sewer covers of the former German population of Brno (German: „Brünn“) that were expelled after World War II. The complicated and tragic history of the two once coexisting nationalities is a problematic issue until today. The „merchandise“ articles combine the sadness of history with pop culture, mold together ambiguous commemoration and consumption.
installation views from Technical University Brno, Czech Republic, 2011
Pamatník/Memorial
2011
installation
digital photo slideshow, paper site specific
This is a research-based work on commemorative culture. All information and pictures are specific to the Czech city of Brno. A worn out city map shows all official commemorative sites in the city centre of Brno, accompanied by a photo slideshow of selected sites from this „course “ .
A takeaway sheet of paper has all these sites of public memory marked on it and suggests the user to visit them, furthermore to write down his/her thoughts that occur during the process, and to leave the paper behind somewhere in public space. Thus the individual feelings and thoughts render an individual path of commemoration. The sheet may serve as an ephemeral commemorative artifact. The installation reflects the research or laboratory situation.
installation views from Technical University Brno, Czech Republic, 2011