docks

Ebb and flow, all will be well In the harbour wind - Hildegard Knef "Titania is here!" is the announcement in Moritz Krauth's video work “Docking”, newly created for the exhibition at artothek. It is part of a role play by four protagonists consisting of classic patterns of playing house including a re-enacted birth scene. A child is born, named after none other than the fairy queen from Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream” as well as the moon of the planet Uranus. The family rejoices, congratulations are offered. Moritz Krauth's work is based on the investigation of family relationship networks within the heteronormative nuclear family. Starting from his own family model, he makes a statement about the standardized constellations archetypical in Western society. Krauth‘s own family (mother, grandmother, father, brother) appear in his photographs, digital collages and video works. He is more concerned with directing a stereotypical staging than producing a biographical family portrait. The fictional new sister “Titania“ opens up a space of possibility: she becomes a projection screen for what could be beyond the existing gender roles and outside the stereotypical family framework. In almost “von-Praunheim-like“ dialogues and exaggerated scenes, the so harmonious family idyll is here and there led ad absurdum and undermined. From a queer perspective, Krauth directs the gaze at what is socially regarded as the ideal model of a family constellation in order to understand and reveal interfamilial imprints, emotions, conflicts, and dynamics (in the sense of a family constellation). In the next step, Krauth questions this ‚ideal‘ and considers what other forms and extensions are possible outside of these limiting categories, keyword "chosen family“. In one video scene, for example, Krauth frames a family shooting with a rainbow, a symbol of queer diversity, created with the help of a water hose. "somebody to protect" – "somebody to be protected by" – "somebody to be protected from" In his sensitive observations and poetic images, Krauth reminds us that the nuclear family is not only a protective space, but often also a place and cause of trauma, discrimination, and violence. The collage-like video works with loose sequences, chapters, cross-fades and subtitles. The latter not only serve to translate the original German version into English, but are also understood as comments, summaries, and outlooks. "reach and search" – "coming and becoming" Moritz Krauth's eight large-format digital collages function similarly: four A2 sheets each manually assembled in an aluminium frame without glass. The images – photographed drawings (sketched portraits), a Hamburg shipyard, light and shadow play in a family home, Manga comic characters – are partly accompanied by text, which sometimes disappears in the background or is overlayed. They are references to pop culture, film, music (often quoted: Hildegard Knef), and sociology. „Nichtsnutz“ („Good-for-nothing“), is hurled at us. „Falsch“ („Wrong“), is one judgement – accusations of the binary social system. "Cracks are there ... Love is there." the artist addresses the audience in the video work. "What remains: the confrontation and the struggle". "Your emotions make you ... strong."