5 April 2018

By-Products of Love. An Exhibition with Works by
Elfi Mikesch, Rosa von Praunheim, and Werner Schroeter
18 May – 12 August 2018, Pariser Platz
Accompanying programme to the exhibition

The exhibition By-Products of Love focuses on three artists who were bound together by an intense, lifelong friendship: photographer, cinematographer and director Elfi Mikesch, film maker and activist Rosa von Praunheim and theatre, opera and film director Werner Schroeter (1945–2010). The title By-Products of love refers to Werner Schroeter's Poussières d'amour (1996), a film about the creation and transience of art, which pays great homage to opera.

As Rosa von Praunheim put it, the 'poet', the 'political activist' and the 'aesthete' are united by their common roots in West Berlin subculture. In the meantime they have made a considerable impression on the visual canon of the artistic underground. Mikesch, von Praunheim and Schroeter defiantly advocate divergent sexualities, whilst rejecting convention as life's principle and artistic standpoint. All three of them continually move between the artistic borders. Back in the sixties even, they addressed questions of gender, body politics and otherness, and the results are no less explosive and relevant today. According to Elfi Mikesch, in their search for 'different films, different images and different ways of life', their works took inspiration from American experimental films and parodies of trivial culture, which they then carried on with but in their own handwriting.

The exhibition uses photographs, films, drawings, sound installations and documents to reveal for the first time the many-facetted aesthetic and biographical interacting relationships amongst them all. With all its tensions and contradictions, the artistic friendship is condensed into a single biographical motif, one which connects all five exhibition rooms with each other. By-Products of Love creates an arc extending across five decades up to the present with current works by Elfi Mikesch and Rosa von Praunheim.

Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation

Events:

Thur 17 May 18, 6 pm
Pariser Platz: Performance in memory of the "Schandparagraph" (shame paragraphe) § 175

Thur 17 May 18, 7 pm
Exhibition opening Elfi Mikesch, Rosa von Praunheim, Jeanine Meerapfel Music: MONA MUR & EN ESCH, feat. Gerhard A. Schiewe (Akkordeon)

Sat 19 May 18, 6 pm
Die Bettwurst Rosa von Praunheim, Germany 1971, 81 min.
Introduction: Rosa von Praunheim

Sat 19 May 18, 8 pm
Männerfreundschaften – Homoerotik in der Goethezeit (Male friendships – homoeroticism in the Goethe period) Rosa von Praunheim, Germany 2018, 85 min.
Berlin-Premiere and discussion Guests: Wolfgang Bunzel, Matthias Luckey, Florian Mildenberger

Sat 2 Jun 18, 4 pm
Rosa von Praunheim in conversation with Božidar Kocevski and Heiner Bomhard on the stage play Jeder Idiot hat eine Oma, nur ich nicht (performance currently at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin)

Sun 3 Jun 18, 4 pm
Rosakinder
Guests: Tom Tykwer, Julia von Heinz, Axel Ranisch, Robert Thalheim

Sat 9 Jun 18, 4 pm
Grimmige Märchen – Werner Schroeter on set
Claudia Lenssen in conversation with Wieland Speck and Zazie de Paris

Sun 10 Jun 18, 4 pm
'Wie mich das Theater entdeckte' – on stage with Werner Schroeter: Claudia Lenssen in conversation with Traute Hoess, Eberhard Kloke and Rainer Will

Sat 16 Jun 18, 4 pm
Bilder aus den Zwischenreichen
Claudia Lenssen in conversation with Elfi Mikesch and Karola Gramann

Sun 17 Jun 18, 4 pm
Concert
Berlin Improvisers Orchestra
Conducted by Wolfgang Georgsdorf, Welcome: Elfi Mikesch

Tue 19 Jun 18, 7 pm
Palermo oder Wolfsburg Werner Schroeter, Germany 1980, 170 min.
Conversation with Thomas Mauch, Harry Baer, Dietrich Kuhlbrodt, Moderation: Claudia Lenssen

Sun 24 Jun 18, 6 pm
Blackbox: Werner Schroeters Anfänge: lecture by Stefan Drössler (Director Munich film museum)

Tue 26 Jun 18, 6 pm
Verrückt bleiben, verliebt bleiben (Stay mad, stay in love) Elfi Mikesch, Germany 1997, 88 min., guest: Torsten Holzapfel and Gerd Hartmann, Moderation: Cornelia Klauss

Tue 26 Jun 18, 8 pm
Mondo Lux – Die Bildwelten des Werner Schroeter (Mondo Lux – The visual worlds of Werner Schroeter) Elfi Mikesch, Germany 2011, 97 min.
Conversation with Frieder Schlaich, Thomas Plenert, Moderation: Claudia Lenssen

Every Wednesday at 6 pm in May and June the actress Christane Ziehl is reading out of Rosa von Praunheim's works in his exhibition room.

Exhibition information
By-Products of Love. An Exhibition with Works by Elfi Mikesch, Rosa von Praunheim and Werner Schroeter
Films, performances, talks
18 May – 12 August 2018
Opening times: Tue–Sun 11 am–7 pm, opens 21 May
Ticket exhibition € 9/6
Free admission to under 18s and Tuesdays from 3 pm
Film programme € 6/4
The talks take place in the foyer. Admission free.
Guided tours: Wed 5 pm and Sun 12 pm, € 3 plus exhibition ticket
Tickets reservation: Tel. +49 (0)30 200 571 000, ticket@adk.de
Venue: Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin
www.adk.de/mikesch-praunheim-schroeter

Press photos at www.adk.de/de/presse/pressematerial.htm Password enquiries to presse@adk.de

Press contact on behalf of Akademie der Künste: rische & co pr, Claudia Rische, Tel. +49 (0)30 6792 8269, mail@rische-pr.de