Christoph Brech _ KUNSTAGENTEN , Berlin





	No. V / C sharp minor 15 ‘18, sound, colour, Germany, 2009 Two threads of light draw ocillating diagrams against a dark background, diagrams which converge into sketchings. Simultaneously, one hears the Rondo-Finale of Gustav Mahler's 5th Symphony. The traces of light follow the two hands of conductor Mariss Jansons during a rehearsal with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in March, 2006. Legible only to the orchestra musicians, Janson´s hands translate Mahler's musical notations into a pictograph of codes and ciphers which now embody the conductor's own temperament and interpretation. In the film, the graphic structures take shape and fade, to be replaced by others. The dynamics of music become a graphic document. As Gustav Mahler's Symphony unfoldes, a new notation of the music originates, the visible “cardiogram of a breaking heart"* . *Th. W. Adorno: Mahler, A Musical Physiognomy

	THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY 8‘10, sound, colour, Ireland, 2008 Small rocks lie scattered on a western hillside of Achill Island near the Irish coast. These are nameless headstones in memory of unbaptized children. The unmarked, undated memorials from the 19th century are overgrown with grass and scrub. They lie like small rocks in the surf, unmoved by the winds that graze through the sparse coastel vegetation. In the background, one hears a soundtrack based on the Irish folksong: The Wind that shakes the Barley.

	TRAPASSO 5‘51, sound, colour, Italy, 2008 Ancient tombstones engraved with portraits of noblemen and eminent clergymen were used in Roman churches to repair damaged flooring. Over the centuries, the shuffling feet of churchgoers and tourists have erased every trace of individuality on the stone reliefs. The portraits have been reduced to their barest human characteristics, abstract ciphers, outlines of what once were heads and faces. What is left of the stone memorials, a metaphor of transience and oblivion.

	TRANSITO 16´13, colour, sound, Italy, 2007 – IT0507 A flat, narrow ray of light slides into the darkness and slowly recedes, followed by the rhythmic swaying of a heavy curtain inflated by the wind. The curtain hangs at the entrance of a Roman church and separates the consecrated area from city activity. Level with the stone floor of the church, the camera records the dance like swelling and withdrawing of the windblown curtain. Church visitors´ feet begin to cross the threshold that separates sunlight from the dimness within, turbulence from peace, present from past, transience from what will remain.

	OPUS 110a Christoph Poppen conducts the Munich Chamber Orchestra. The creases which occur on the conductor´s tailcoat during Dimitri Shostakovich´s chamber Symphony „Opus 110 a“ visualise the dynamics of the music. Opus 110a, 24’’ 23’, colour, sound, Germany, 2001 – DE1001

	RITRATTO ROMANO 21’ 09’’, colour, sound, Italy 2006 – IT0106 “One of Christoph Brech’s recent video films, which originated in the Campo Verano Cemetery in Rome, approaches the medium of painting as one of remembrance. Instead of photographs, which were often worked into the gravestones, one finds in the Campo Verano many portraits of men, woman and children buried there, painted between 1847 and 1889 by Filippo Severati. In his video, Brech lets the portraits gradually blend one into the next. As if gazing at the viewer from a distant past, the eyes of these nameless dead, whose features melt into one another in a constant metamorphosis, remain in the same position on the paintings, until finally, in this sad but beautiful requiem, all personal attributes seem obliterated, and gender and individuality merge together in death.” (Goetz Collection, Germany)

	PUNTO 16’’ loop, colour, sound, Italy, 2006 – IT0406 An unorthodox view of Rome. A Fiat Punto travels from the Villa Massimo through Roman suburbs to the countryside outside Rome. The camera is attached to the shiny surface of its trunk. Because the trunk is both convex and concave, the reflections of the passing scenery - the buildings, trees and other cars - are mirrored, thus creating familiar yet strange imagery.