Whip Whipping the Wall
digital color video, transferred from super 8 mm film, with sound, 15 min., 1998-2002
“When I was maybe 8 I remember playing in the abandoned apartment at the back of my grandmother’s garden in Bad Kreuznach. My cousins and I had found bullwhips in the shed and some shoe polish and we went into the empty apartment and vandalized. The interior walls were covered with wallpaper from the 50s which I smeared as far as I could reach with the black shoe polish. And then lay into the walls with the bullwhip; the wallpaper coming off in big dry flakes. An early act of stepping into the studio.” - DF
The artist repeatedly lashes a wall with a bullwhip. Over time, the action begins to shred the wallpaper, revealing the raw plaster lying beneath. Eventually the plater too begins to fall away, exposing bricks. The activity is deliberate, controlled, and contrasted with the sounds of whipping, breathing, and tearing.