Olaf Breuning

Olaf Breuning
Home

10 January - 7 February 2004

Home, Olaf Breuning's second exhibition at Metro Pictures, is a two-screen video projected in the main gallery that has been altered to create a viewing space that conforms to the film's "homemade" qualities. Breuning spent the past year shooting and editing the 30-minute Home, his most ambitious video production to date. He served as writer, director, producer, costume designer, crew, location scout, set designer, cameraman, composer and editor, using friends or other non-professionals as actors.

On one screen the main character is seen in a hotel room escaping from his stressful life. He speaks about his fantasies that are simultaneously being shown on the second screen. Breuning and actor Brian Kerstetter traveled to different locations for each of the separate stories, from his home base in New York City to a Caribbean beach; Manchester, England; an Alpine pool in Switzerland; Machu Picchu in Peru; the Grand Canyon; Amish Pennsylvania; the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas; and the Madonna Inn in California. Still photographs relating to his films and installations remain an important part of Breuning's work. Four new photographs are included in this exhibition.

Olaf Breuning, born in Switzerland in 1970, has lived in New York City for the last three years. Given his travel and work schedule of filming and exhibiting in museums and galleries, New York serves as more of a base than a home. In the past year Breuning has had one-person exhibitions at Magasin, Grenoble, France; Museo de Arte Carrilo Gil, Mexico; and the Musee de Strasbourg, France. Past one-person shows have been at the Swiss Institute, New York; Schaffhausen Museum, Switzerland; Kunsthalle, Zurich; Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany; Centre D'art Contemporain, Geneva; Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland; and Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Switzerland. His work was included in Let's Entertain organized by the Walker Art Center. "Ugly" was published by Hatje Cantz as a compilation of all of his projects and installations through the year 2001.