Work from the Collection

Baisse-toi Montagne, Lève-toi Vallon

Artist: Ulla Von Brandenburg

Date of creation: 2015

Domain: Video; Installation

Medium: Film 16 mm, black and white, sound, 18 min

Collection: Lafayette Anticipations - Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin

Date of acquisition: 2015

Ulla Von Brandenburg, Baisse-toi Montagne, Lève-toi Vallon, Video; Installation, 2015, Collection Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin © DR

As a follow-up to her performance Baisse-toi Montagne, Lève-toi Vallon, which was performed in several cities around the world, Ulla von Brandenburg produced a film and installation of the same name. On the occasion of the performance in Riga, the artist made a black-and-white film of this play for five actors and a choir about Saint-Simonianism and its social and political projects. For Performa 2015, she projected this film and produced new colour elements for the set (using the chromatic palette of the film’s set, made invisible by the use of black-and-white) that complement the costumes and objects already created for the performance. Finally, in addition to the frontal aesthetic of the play and associated film, she imagined an installation offering a total immersion in the positivist utopia that was Saint-Simonianism. In Ulla von Brandenburg’s film work, the use of black-and-white represents a form of timelessness. Baisse-toi Montagne, Lève-toi Vallon thus exposes, through different media, the memory of this progressive eighteenth-century movement, which is little known to the public. The work, enriched by the plurality of its forms and songs, rereads, revives, and recalls the values of this movement but also its shortcomings, highlighting the question of the political ideal.

À propos de l'artiste

Ulla Von Brandenburg

Born in 1974 in Karlsruhe, Allemagne

Ulla Von Brandenburg at the Fondation

L’œuvre d’Ulla von Brandenburg se développe autour du théâtre et de la scénographie au moyen de multiples supports. Son imaginaire est inspiré par l’esthétique d’une Europe fin-de-siècle où se mêlent notamment l’occultisme, la littérature, l’imagerie et la psychanalyse. À l’aune de ces résurgences passées, l’artiste appréhende le présent au gré de mises en scène savantes et polymorphes.

Née en 1974 à Karlsruhe (Allemagne), Ulla von Brandenburg a étudié la scénographie dans sa ville natale et les arts plastiques à Hambourg avant de recevoir le prix Marcel Duchamp en 2016. Elle est représentée par les galeries Art:Concept (Paris), Produzentengalerie (Hambourg), Meyer Riegger (Karlsruhe) et Pilar Corrias (Londres). Elle vit et travaille à Paris.