Thomas Steffl
Exhibition at Kunstmuseum Bonn

February 24 - May 1, 2006

Curator Georg Elben, Videonale Bonn

After the great success of the exhibition "Oops!... I did it again? by Christian Jankowski in 2004, the Videonale presents the young artist Thomas Steffl with a solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bonn in spring 2006.

Thomas Steffl has been dealing with the various phenomena of self-perception for quite some time. At first glance, his film and video installations seem like precise documentations of an external reality, but when observed for a long time they prove to be abstract constructs that deal with the situational conditions of perception and their conditioning.

Thomas Steffl's work on the film "The Wolf Boy" by François Truffaut (1969), in which the director takes up the much-tried Kaspar Hauser theme and pursues the question of human nature, points the way ahead for the exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.

Based on this myth of originality, Thomas Steffl develops an exhibition that illuminates the relationships between identity and the design of nature. He himself understands the exhibition as a coherent installation that, like the motifs in "The Wolf Boy", is composed of individual works.

The 16mm film installation "Gum" contrasts campfire romanticism with the cool atmosphere of a bar, and the mysterious video documentation of a laughter therapy hour can be seen in a room-sized tent construction made of fabric with a wild batik pattern. Thus, the exhibition is an offer of entertaining entertainment, but at the same time also an occasion for far-reaching reflections.