Special Directors Lounge screening: Andreas Müller-Pohle in Person
The 8th Berlin International Directors Lounge, 2012
Friday, 17 February 2012, 19h
Naherholung Sternchen, Berolinastraße 7, 10178 Berlin / Mitte

"Directors Lounge presents the first theater screening with Andreas Müller-Pohle, featuring a whole range of his video work.

Water would seem to play an important role in Andreas Müller-Pohle's recent work, both in film and photography. It may also be a key for interpreting his work as a whole. In the case of Hong Kong Waters - the Asian metropolis is surrounded by water on three sides, the South China Sea and the Perl River Delta - the waters inspired a number of photo, video and sound works. 'Dark Waves,' 'Zig Zag' and 'Coasting' were conceived in Hong Kong. 'First of all, the water has to be surpassed in order to move around the city,' Müller-Pohle told me, and water embodies both dangers and chances for the city. The rising sea level, due to climate change, will put the city under threat. Large parts of the urban area have been reclaimed from the sea and will be in danger. However, the sea has also given the city a good trading position and a strategic importance.

http://www.riverproject.net

A very different work in the program is 'Araki at Work,' shot in 1996 in Japan, but first published in 2011, a few months ago. Here, Müller-Pohle is the documentary photographer with a small un-intrusive camera, and driven by his interest in documenting the creative process of an artist. Araki, well-known as a provocative and commercial photographer, seems to surpass limits of privacy when working, especially seen from a European perspective. However, the film also reflects and produces the strange relations between 'observer and observed,' the settings in which the photographer worked with a model. As the video possibly takes the viewer to the limits of 'moral habits,' without being pornographic or offensive, the viewer becomes the observer of the observer, maybe even reflecting back on his or her own position as spectator, or voyeur.

The program will include a discussion with Andreas Müller-Pohle. We thus expect an extraordinary evening that will be an eye- and ear-opener. And brains."
- Klaus W. Eisenlohr, Curator