Elina Brotherus / Victoria Schultz

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl is considered one of the great works of the Beat generation and 2016 marked 60 years since its first publication. In this exhibition, it serves as the basis for Howl, the concluding part of Elina Brotherus’s New York film trilogy, and Victoria Schultz’s photographic narrative To Each Their Own. Schultz has found inspiration in the work of Ginsberg, especially after studying with him in 1985 at the Dharmadhatu Center in New York. Howl is thus a self-evident choice of title for their joint exhibition, serving both as a direct reference to their role model and as a symbolically-charged gesture; as a wail, a roar.

Elina Brotherus and Victoria Schultz met in 2012 in New York where Helsinki-born Schultz has spent most of her adult life. Brotherus was there to attend an experimental cinema workshop and, as her final project, completed a 16 mm film titled Francesca Woodman's Aunts (2012). The film featured both Brotherus and Schultz and, inspired by the success of their first collaboration, they continued working together on two further instalments of Brotherus’s short film trilogy, Wrong Face (2013) and Howl (2015) and, later, on Schultz’s photographic narrative To Each Their Own from her Escapees from the Zoo (2014) series.

The two artists share an interest in experimental and performative approaches to self-portraiture. Their first joint exhibition will feature Brotherus’s film trilogy and photographs from her Carpe Fucking Diem (2011-2015) series. The exhibition will also serve as a launch exhibition for her latest title Carpe Fucking Diem (Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg 2015). Schultz will be exhibiting her short film Rough Cut (2015), photographic narratives from Escapees from the Zoo series (2014-2015) and portraits from Occupy Wall Street (2011).

The artists have invited director and cinematographer Tomasz Werner, an instructor at Mono No Aware’s filmmaking workshops in Brooklyn, NY, to contribute to the exhibition. Werner has previously worked as a cinematographer and advisor on Brotherus’s film trilogy. Werner will be exhibiting a series of short video portraits, titled Person Pictures (2015).