Julian Rosefeldt

The Ship of Fools, (Production Photograph), 2007

C-print, in folder, with book Sheet size 40,20 x 50,30 cm Signed and numbered Edition of 20 + 5 AP


Julian Rosefeldt frequently has his films projected onto several screens simultaneously, carrying the viewer off into a surreal, theatrical world whose inhabitants are caught in the structures and rituals of everyday life. Despite their enigmatic subject matter and the precision of their production, Rosefeldt’s films are charged with slapstick and satire. “This work,” wrote Stephan Berg, “is succinct because it avoids ‘political correctness’ and plays with the vocabularies of kitsch, inappropriateness, and exaggeration. It demonstrates what it really means to distort—in the best sense of the word—the world to a point where it is no longer recognizable.”


Our Collector’s Edition is of an atmospheric still taken during the production of the film Ship of Fools; it was shot in the garden of Castle Sacrow in Potsdam. The castle and grounds designed by Lenné for the Prussian kings housed such illustrious persons as Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. During the Nazi era it was the headquarters for the official in charge of the state forests. Under the East German regime it served as a school for training customs dogs. The foggy, moonlit scene looks a little bit like the setting for a romantic opera: dramatic, eerie, and Wageneresque.