Raimund Krumme: A Retrospective

We are very honored to host Raimund Krumme, an outstanding artist who has managed to balance a number of prize-winning films at the world's most prestigious festivals, including the Grand Prix du Jury at Annecy, the Prix de la Presse at Annecy, and the Jury Award at the Hiroshima Film Festival, among many others, with an outstanding academic career at institutions such as the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Los Angeles, the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne, and the Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan, among others.
He is also a founding member of Cartoon, the animation program of the European Union's Media Program. In his films, Krumme portrays the relationships of power and dependence between his characters, as well as their constant adaptation to the physical conditions of the universe they inhabit. His figures, suspended in the void and in time, often condemned to eternal repetition, seem to be taken from an Anthony Burgess short story or a Kafkaesque fantasy about hell. And, as in a Beckett story, the most ordinary, repeated, and banal gestures become the essence of the whole, unfolding on a white, infinite, and meaningless screen.
At the heart of Krumme's work beats the expectations and existential vertigo of Samuel Beckett: the absurdity of the universe and, as a consequence, the absurdity of our own existence. As Fichte said, the question of whether or not life has meaning has an affirmative answer: the meaning is that which each one attributes to it. Raimund Krumme has been and continues to be a mentor to many of us, as well as an indisputable point of reference for colleagues and audiences around the world. (Text by Prof. Isabel Herguera)

The films:

Ropedance, 1986, 9.45 min
Two men, each holding one end of a rope, perform an intricate dance on, in, and through a square figure.

Spectators, 1989, 5.50 min
Based on the riots that took place in a football stadium in Brussels, the short film explores crowd behavior.

The Crossing, 1991, 10 min
The conflict and confusion experienced by an individual when facing a life-changing decision drag him towards accepting his fate...

Passage, 1994, 6 min
A master and his servant engage in a battle of wills as they attempt to cross a frozen lake. As they struggle, it becomes increasingly evident who is truly in control of whom.

The Message, 2000, 6 min
A mysterious message is passed from one person to another. "He is back again." It is not clear who he is, or what the message means, but soon it is spreading like wildfire (literally). Before long it has engulfed the entire city.

The Prisoners Choir, 2004, 6 min
Based on a scene from Beethoven's opera Fidelio, this work tells the story of a group of prisoners who emerge from the darkness of their cells into the liberating light of day.