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Cyrill Lachauer (*1979 in Rosenheim, lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles) develops his extensive projects on long journeys, and delves deeply into the local cultures of the places he visits. For the exhibition by the Sammlung Goetz in the former air-raid shelter of Haus der Kunst, Lachauer has created a new multi-part installation, which includes films, videos, photographs and texts.
The artist deals with the idea of land in various forms. Land can signify home and provide roots, or refer to a nourishing piece of earth. It can also, however, lead to inclusion or exclusion when it represents the idea of nationhood. Land can be owned or lived with. It can be taken away, destroyed, and made inaccessible to others. In Cockaigne – I am not sea, I am not land, we encounter a US American who has fled to Berlin to escape a long prison sentence, three diamond seekers in South Africa, a gay park worker in Yosemite National Park and people performing demonic Twelfth Night rituals in the alpine region. Lachauer does not assume the role of the distanced observer hidden behind the camera, but rather questions his own position by exploring socio-political issues concerning gender, identity, social class and nationhood. The title of the exhibition refers to the 1567 painting The Land of Cockaigne by Peter Brueghel the Elder. In the painting, Breughel depicts a land of milk and honey (English Cockaigne) as an ironic utopian counterpart to the everyday harshness of peasant life.
In May 2019, Cyrill Lachauer traveled from Florida to New Mexico on freight trains. On the journey, he wrote texts. These writings became the basis of his video Sunken Cities, Floating Skies, which was developed in collaboration with Moritz Stumm. Over a period of several months, the two artists worked in the studio and created a 25-minute sampling composition. While the film Sunken Cities, Floating Skies was produced exclusively as a limited edition, the soundtrack is available as a free and open source on Soundcloud.
Curated by Cornelia Gockel and Susanne Touw
Cyrill Lachauer designed a five-part reading of his Sea Notes for us, in which he reads the five issues that have been published thus far, beginning with NR5 from 2017. The writings include notes, thoughts, observations and stories in which the experienced blends with the remembered and the imagined with what is told.
40 pages, 31 ill., softcover
German
2012, Kunstverlag Ingvild Goetz GmbH, Hamburg
ISBN 978-3939894-00-1
€ 6,00
112 pages, 114 ill., softcover
German/English
2012, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern
ISBN 978-3-7757-3288-8
€ 10,00
124 pages, 458 ill., softcover
German/English
2011, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern
ISBN 978-3-7757-3154-6
€ 10,00
117 pages, 297 ill., softcover
German/English
2011, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern
ISBN 978-3-7757-2974-1
€ 10,00
532 pages, 2200 ill., hardcover
German/English
2004, Kunstverlag Ingvild Goetz GmbH, Hamburg
1. edition: 2003, Kunstverlag Ingvild Goetz GmbH, Hamburg
ISBN 3-9808063-9-1
2. edition: 2006, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern
ISBN 978-3-7757-1865-3
€ 35
320 pages, 782 ill., hardcover
German/English
2010, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern
ISBN 978-3-7757-2604-7
€ 25,00
