Jan 14 - Mar 05, 2005
Irresistible Impulse
In his new installation 'Irresistible Impulse' at Galerie Gisela Capitain Johannes Wohnseifer presents us the fictious elements of an attempted assassination.
The title of the show is based on the story of the man who tried to kill president Ronald Reagan - John Hinckley - who was pleading 'not guilty' based on the fact that he saw the movie 'Taxi Driver' by Martin Scorsese so many times that it was an 'Irresistible Impulse' for him to try to kill the president of the United States.
Johannes Wohnseifer transforms the gallery into the stage for his re-written script of the movie 'Taxi Driver', apart from Jodie Foster and Robert de Niro there are now also John Hinckley, the assassin, Ronald Reagan and Howard Hughes as the mysterious man from Hollywood in the background, who commissioned the movie to use it as a manipulative political tool to control future presidents of the United States. Black & white photographs are presented as proofs for this theory - they are in fact collages, filmed and then photographed.
In the first room three show-cases filled with documents, photos, books, photographs and ephemera of the artists' research related to the movie, the John Hinckley case and Howard Hughes, introducing the viewer into this web of references, coordinates and relationships, true and false, real and imagined.
The main characters of the movie as rewritten by Johannes Wohnseifer - Jodie Foster, Robert de Niro, Ronald Reagan, John Hickley and Howard Hughes are represented by puppets, hanging from the gallery ceiling, ready to perform this new version of a cult classic - however, this performance will not take place and remains only virtual.
Throughout the gallery Wohnseifer placed highly polished stainless steel sculptures - one for each puppet like their abstract shadows.
With this show Johannes Wohnseifer is once again presenting the viewer the links between real life and fiction in our culture, the influences the fictional and real world have on each other and that very often the line between reality and fiction gets blurred in the process.
The movie 'The Aviator' by Martin Scorsese opens this month.