Anne Imhof.
Fear II September 14, 2016 - September 25, 2016
Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery of the Present

In autumn/winter 2015, Anne Imhof (born 1978 in Gießen, lives in Frankfurt am Main) showed Forever Rage, an excerpt from her two work cycles Rage and Deal . With this collage of pieces combining her last exhibition and performance, she won the Nationalgalerie Prize in 2015. In autumn 2016, Anne Imhof returned to Berlin with her prize-winning presentation Angst II .

Fear is an opera in three acts that spans three stages in time and space: The Kunsthalle Basel, the Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof and La Biennale de Montréal dedicated three exhibitions to Anne Imhof in 2016, which were connected to each other like three acts . The artist presented a first act as a prelude in June 2016 at the Kunsthalle Basel. Angst II in Berlin was the high point and turning point of this body of work. Anne Imhof completed the series of works with a third part, which she developed for La Biennale de Montréal. Over the course of 10 evenings, the artist created a painterly composition in the Hamburger Bahnhof that combined music, texts, sculptural elements and actors, falcons and controlled drones to create an overall picture.

Angst II divided the historic hall of Hamburger Bahnhof with a high rope and a thick fog blurred the architecture. The music of the piece encompassed the entire exhibition space and subjected the resulting painting to its rhythm. While in the act shown in the Kunsthalle Basel, songs appeared in a more temporal arrangement than arias and the march, a waltz and a ballad were given a role, the musical composition in the Hamburger Bahnhof was played via individual systems that were attached to the stage structures of a rock concert or even were reminiscent of the in-house loudspeakers for public announcements distributed throughout Hamburger Bahnhof.

The music pieces in Angst II were written for this act and accompanied the work, sometimes violently surreal and comical, sometimes very quiet. The compositions were written primarily for choirs that are not sung by voices. They were broken down into their individual tracks, played via the dancers' mobile phones and formed an orchestral whole. A tightrope walker walked through the semi-dark room like a ticking clock, suggesting the pulse of this piece.

Angst II, the historic hall of the Hamburger Bahnhof became the setting for an “exhibition as an opera”, whose characters appeared in various constellations after the opening evening over the duration of the exhibition.

Angst II at Hamburger Bahnhof presented the second part of an opera in three acts (curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers and Udo Kittelmann). The first act of the opera took place at the Kunsthalle Basel from June 9th to 19th, 2016 (curated by Elena Filipovic). On October 19, 2016, La Biennale de Montréal (curated by Philippe Pirotte) showed the third act of the opera.