Artist:
Clemens von Wedemeyer (born 1974 in Göttingen, Germany; lives and works in Berlin, Germany).

Materials:
35 mm/DVD, 1:1,66, stereo, 10 min, loop.

Description:
“In Halle-Silberhöhe, an area of pre-fab blocks of flats in East Germany, blocks of flats are being torn down. The film addresses the mission of an urban-planning concept in the late modern era. The montage assembles the separate camera shots together to create a bleak setting, at the same time a comment on a technique used by Michelangelo Antonioni in his 1962 film L’eclisse.”
-“Silberhöhe, 2003,” Kow website.

“When the dust has settled in Silberhöhe, his images rise from the rubble of the East German architecture with a restrained theatricality. He does not position himself within this scenario, floating above the events like his camera; the collapse serves solely to lends his films drama and relevance: ‘There are centres where population accumulates while other regions produce ghost towns. Should the attractions of these ruined cities not remain accessible to the previous occupants, for instance as a film studio for as-yet-unwritten movies or as an adventure playground?’ Such questions construct a link to theories, but not to places or events.
—Catrin Lorch, review of Clemens von Wedemeyer, Frieze, June 7, 2006.