Atomic Gauguin

A participatory Media Performance* - Film, sound, music, dance & painting, 60 minutes, eng/de. About the life and work of the painter Paul Gauguin, 1848 - 1903. But Gauguin lives today, in an allotment garden in Berlin, as the unsuccessful Berlin artist Paul Alfred G. Disappointed by Europe, he promotes a colony of liberal arts in Tahiti. But none of his artist friends want to follow him there, instead he receives numerous suggestions as to what he could do there in their place. Arriving in Tahiti, he was appalled by the villa districts, corrupt
artists and impoverished suburban settlements. He moves on to the nuclear-contaminated Mururoa Atoll. Inspired by the suggestions and ideas of his artist friends, he creates a late work there that is discovered by a military officer and achieves top prices worldwide. But the collectors get sick from the atomic radiation, like the artist himself.
*Based on contributions & ideas by artists from Tahiti, France, Greece, Luxemburg, China, Mauritius, Papua-Neuguinea, Portugal, R.D. Kongo, USA & Germany:
Anja Wiese, Christine Falk, Clea T. Waite, Cronos, Dava Ffrog Wing, Dorit Trebeljahr, Frank Gerlitzki, Harry Flöter, Gaya, Jean-Paul Debouy, Jean-Paul Forest, Jérôme Descamps, Jürgen Claus, Julien Gué, Karl Heinz Jeron, Knky, Krishna Luchoomun, Künstler Treu, Laiza Pautehea, Li Lisha, Lilo Mangelsdorf, Markus Prem, Maurice de Martin, Max Sudhus, Merel Mirage, Michel Aniol, Mike Yonxi Mai, Mirjam Dorsch, Monak, Oliver Möst, Paul M Waschkau, Peter Kiefer, Raik Force, Ratoos Haoapa Gary, Reinhold Gottwald, Rolf Hinterecker, Sebastian Böwe, Stephan Groß, Susanne Themlitz, Sylvia Winkler, Tanya von Barnau-Sythoff, THS, Tom Albrecht, Tony Beilby, Tresor Kintoki, Verena Braunstein, Veronika Radulovic, Wei Xia, Wolfgang Hille, Zuzanna Skiba.
Paul Gauguin was a traveler, a driven man, an unstable lover, a seeker. He was a formative member of various artist groups and schools before he withdrew into the utopian dream world of his Tahitian paintings, which are now considered a milestone in the beginning of modern art. Gauguin staged himself as a colorfully dressed bird of paradise, he lived in Tahiti with underage young women, in his paintings he used non-European pictorial and symbolic worlds without thinking, All of this is an expression of a professional deformation that reveals the downside of this genius cult, which is the basis of the awakening of twentieth-century art. And yet, like many others before and after him, he was filled with collective utopias, without which modern art would be unthinkable.
Atomic Gauguin visualizes references between cultural, political and economic phenomena that today have a regional and global effect: the myth of the artist as a dropout (escapism versus exclusion), colonialism and environmental destruction. What would Paul do differently today?

6–22 Dec. 2023 Exhibition, Performance, Workshop – Songkhla Artspace Thailand
27 Oktober 2023 – Iolux Berlin
10 September 2023 – Zitadelle Berlin / Tag des offenen Denkmals
26 August 2023 – Schloss Biesdorf / Lange Nacht der Museen
19 August 2023 – Glashaus Borken/Hessen
23 June 2023 – Oblomov Bar / 48 Stunden Neukölln Berlin
3 June 2023 – Camping Akademie e.V. / Artspring Festival Berlin
7 May 2023 – Kleingartenverein Bornholm 2 / Artwalk Berlin
15 January 2023 – Performance, Meta House Phnom Penh, Cambodia
December 2022 – Performance Previews at Nuclear Test Site Mururoa II
January/February/March 2022 – Nuclear Test Site Mururoa II
November/December 2021 – Diverse Locations in Papeete, Tahiti
15 October 2021 – Iolux Berlin
8 October 2021 – Schloss Biesdorf Berlin
28 August 2021 – Ortstermin Festival, Turmstrasse Berlin
04 August 2021 – Prolog Exhibition, Haus der Statistik Berlin