The exhibition 'Transverse Materialism' displays a series of videos and videostills presented as large dia-positives. Starting point of the used material is video footage, which Clemens Krauss has shot himself as a child and young teenager in the 1990's. This Video8 material has been digitally transferred and been re-assembled and re-edited by Krauss to new video narrations, which build a link to an understanding of contemporary political, social and cultural conditions. Moments of transgression emerge, emotions of embarrassment and guilt evolve - within an anonymous kid, a striking boy or an unknown individual and his social environment.

By portraying a hyperactive child, a self-questioning adult or other peculiar persona - in fact, it is always Clemens Krauss himself - the staging of eg. bizarre death situations and the associatively arranged sequences of images reveal a longing of the individual that arises from the absence of something that can never be precisely defined. The videos are underlaid with both original sound and computer-generated voice-overs. This tranverse material-shift is continued in 11 video-stills, which have been exposed in large formate dia-positives. The materiality of film, which has been taken over from video in the late 20th century is brought back through digitalization and re-exposure to a celluloid-like material. For years, Clemens Krauss has been working on questions on the relationship between (human) bodies, the resulting organizations of social and cultural structures and their political phenomena.

His numerous projects in well-known international museums and institutions are often preceded by long stays on site. Krauss sees himself as a kind of 'embedded artist', for whom artistic knowledge production takes place in the form of investigative and reflective practice. Krauss sees biography primarily as material. This material should be brought into a transversal exchange. Krauss, who lives and works in Berlin, has studied in Vienna, Berlin and London and is currently associated professor for painting at the Art Academy in Berlin.

—Tereza de Arruda


Fototeca de Cuba
Mercaderes 307, Plaza Vieja, Habana Vieja, La Habana, Cuba
Exhibition period: January 9—February 12, 2018