Javier Téllez
Rotations (Prometheus and Zwitter), 2011

Artist
Javier Téllez

Title
Rotations (Prometheus and Zwitter)

Year of creation
2011

Technology and duration
Two 35mm film projections, 7 minutes each / Ed. 5 + 2 AP

Year of acquisition
2013

In this work, two rotating sculptures are shown side by side. On the one hand, it is Prometheus (1937) by Arno Breker, a monumental male figure that depicts the mythological hero carrying a torch. On the other hand, Woman and Man or Adam and Eve, also known as “Zwitter” (1920) by Karl Genzel, is shown, a small wooden figure that shows a hermaphrodite with a watch in his hand. Arno Breker's bronze statue Prometheus was one of the central exhibits at the “Great German Art Exhibition” organized by the National Socialists in Munich in 1937.

Karl Genzel's sculpture was shown nearby in the counter-exhibition Degenerate Art, an exhibition whose aim was to incite the public against modern art by displaying avant-garde artworks alongside the works of the mentally ill. Karl Genzel had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was a patient at the Eickelborn psychiatric institution. The two sculptures and the two artists could not have been treated more differently. In this film installation, the two now meet at eye level.