Flint House Lizard. Ani Schulze

Flint House Lizard. Ani Schulze

With the exhibition Flint House Lizard at basis e.V, Ani Schulze is presenting a film under the same title together with an installation comprising fabric and drawings. They form a fragmentary narrative based on the effects of the sun on our human behaviour.

The film Flint House Lizard creates a surreal microcosmos, in which the body, nature, and technology penetrate and influence each other. Schulze refers to a theory by the Russian scientist and cosmologist Alexander Chizhevsky (1897-1964), which states that social development and mass movements are related to periodic cycles of the sun and are influenced by them. In the film we see an apparently natural landscape with worm-like forms and human beings, who all seem to follow those cycles. From awakening, to collective consolidation, to a final sense of apathy and isolation, the figures remain in a kind of trance state. The film is shaped by its growing sense of tension and by the perpetual breaking down of a cohesive setting or logical narration as well as by the alternating filmmaking techniques and intense sound compositions. The apparently remote world of the film preserves an intangible quality throughout the film, while the lizard functions as a constant symbol of renewal and rebirth. Both appear to follow a closed cycle.

Individual forms and elements from the filmic work can also be found in the artist's drawings and textile works. Under the title Durst, the drawings refer to a natural and existential need, which can be understood both as a driving force or a common basic desire, while the printed textile works refer to a physical shell as well as cultic rituals.

On various layers Ani Schulze immerses herself in the meaning of the solar cycles and the question of how they can be understood on a mythological, technical and scientific level. For this there is no clear answer. Rather, the individual works in their constellations prove to be fragmentary references to a process of control and contradictions as well as to permanent negotiations with oneself and others. The works further tell of an indefinite strength and thus place physical empowerment and collective action in a complex frame of reference. Both remain in a state of suspension located between cosmological signification and technical control.

Ani Schulze (*1982) studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, the Glasgow School of Arts and the art academies in Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe. Her works have been shown in a number of solo and group exhibitions, screenings and talks, among others at the Salzburg and Cologne Kunstverein, I: Project Space in Beijing, Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt, Galerie Nagel Dragxler/ travel agency gallery in Cologne, the Oberhausen Short Film Festival and Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp.

The exhibition is supported by:
Kulturamt Frankfurt

The film is supported by:
innogy Stiftung