Outset Germany_Switzerland was pleased to have announced that the video work 'Strings' by the German artist Annika Kahrs has entered the collection of the Hamburger Kunsthalle with the support of Outset Germany_Switzerland and Produzentengalerie, Hamburg.
Annika Kahrs (b.1984 Achim, DE) Strings, 2010.
"A string quartet plays the first bars of Ludwig van Beethovens Opus 18 No. 4 in C Minor from 1800. Dramatic and penetrating, as the score demands, the violins, viola and cello combine rising Fortissimo and quiet Staccati to a harmonic whole. The balanced homogenity comes to an end as the music stops after the first melody and the musicians exchange places with the player to their right. Now, with each other’s instruments, things become very different. The game becomes a balancing act between fragility and catastrophy: an unexpected note here, seconds of silence between light and sharp dissonances there. NoticEably unsure, the participants fight their way through the score. This exchanging places to the right happens a total of four times until every player has sat in every chair. At the end, the musicians laugh nervously into the camera – the "before the game " has become an afterwards and the participants seem relieved to realise this."
Text excerpt: Katrin Diederichs, catalogue text 'Strings', 2010
