Weiter war nichts, ist nichts

(It meant nothing then, it means nothing now)

Installation with light pendulum, text

quatere #1 - #6

Alu Dibon Prints 42 x 47,7 cm

Weiter war nichts, ist nichts (It meant nothing then, it means nothing now.) deals with a letter by East German writer Christa Wolf, written in 1984 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of her publishing house. Five years before the end of the East German state, Wolf demonstrates a surreal intuition by describing a tectonic shift that works beneath the surface of the officially presented reality. In a sharp tone, she refers to the taboo of naming the state affairs currently in motion. Against the silence, Wolf insists on being embedded in the vibrations of the time: „Once we felt together how the earth trembled.“

The quatere #1 - #6 series, produced for Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD) leads from the installation into the contemporary social reality of Dresden, Germany. Wolf's historical text is translated into five languages of the largest migration groups in Saxony, Germany. In the accompanying performance schwanken (swaying) (in collaboration with Tanja Krone) these translations are then recited and interwoven with each other by native speakers coming from these Dresden communities.

Weiter war nichts, ist nichts & quatere # 1 - # 6 Clarissa Thieme; schwanken © Clarissa Thieme & Tanja Krone

Christa Wolf, "Berlin, im Juni 1984". Courtesy of Erbengemeinschaft nach Christa Wolf

Commissioned by Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin

quatere #1 - #6, Alu Dibon Print 42 x 47,7 cm

Facsimile print English, Arabic, Russian, Dari and Vietnamese translation, Christa Wolf, "Berlin, im Juni 1984". Courtesy of Erbengemeinschaft nach Christa Wolf

In a setting developed during an engagement with the Archiv der Avantgarden (AdA) Egidio Marzona’s comprehensive collection of 20th-century avant-garde art at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD), Thieme's Weiter war nichts, ist nichts (It meant nothing then, it means nothing now.) enters into a dialogue with West German artist group ZERO, which in post-war Germany formulated a concept of art removed from the static object and moving towards a common space of experience. „But the restlessness of calm is spooky, a contradiction to the rhythm of the heart, a movement that destroys itself; it does not free us for seeing that is awake, bright, and a measure of the unbridled.“

SCHWANKEN (SWAYING) 

Performance with six performers, text

in collaboration with Tanja Krone