Madonna Machine Rosary / The Stones, the shells. Conversation between Thomas and Helke Bayrle and Antje Majewski, Frankfurt 2011
A conversation with the artist Thomas Bayrle in his studio in Frankfurt, about prayers in machines, the weaving of the fabric of society, the meadow as a “wonderful and terrible symbiosis,” and a new concept of freedom starting from our bodies. For Bayrle, there is no fundamental difference between the technical and the natural world, between our bodies and a motor. He first experienced this when he was working as a weaver. “In any case, I didn’t trust my senses–when suddenly I started hearing human voices at a certain frequency in the dynamos. I put my ear to the engine block and actually heard the delicate, little voices of women singing somewhere deep in the transmission…”
Helke Bayrle talks about stones as living gods, and explains how she helps shells to move from one ocean to another: “So I threw Chinese shells into the sea in England, or in Italy, and vice versa, threw Italian shells into the Chinese sea. And for me it was somehow always such a lovely, generous gesture, throwing them in like that.”
Madonna Machine Rosary / The Stones, the shells. Conversation between Thomas and Helke Bayrle and Antje Majewski, Frankfurt 2011
A film by Antje Majewski
HD-Video, colour, sound, 38 min, 2011
With: Thomas Bayrle, Helke Bayrle, Antje Majewski
Direction, Camera, Sound, Editing: Antje Majewski
Sound mixing assistance: Christoph Ulbich
Subtitles: Katrin Meyberg
Curator: Adam Budak
Produced by: Kunsthaus Graz
Thank you: Thomas und Helke Bayrle, Adam Budak, Peter Pakesch
Texts:
Madonna Machine Rosary. Fragments of a conversation with Thomas and Helke Bayrle and Antje Majewski, Frankfurt 2011
Madonna Maschine Rosenkranz. Gesprächsfragmente mit Thomas, Helke Bayrle und Antje Majewski, Frankfurt 2011Die Steine, die Muscheln. Gespräch zwischen Helke Bayrle und Antje Majewski, Frankfurt 2011
Exhibitions:
Thomas Bayrle: All in One, Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, FR, 2013
Thomas Bayrle: All in One, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, GB, 2012
Die Gimel-Welt. Wie die Objekte zum Sprechen kommen, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, A, 2011
Publication:
Antje Majewski, The World of Gimel. How to make objects talk, Ed. Adam Budak, Peter Pakesch. Kunsthaus Graz / Sternberg Press, 2011
