In ‘Ever After‘, Julian-Jakob Kneer explores the intersections of love and death and the gamifications of the human condition. In a series of new wall works, a floor strewn with roses, and a requiem sound score whose recipient might just be the artist himself, Kneer reflects on the performative act of self-killing as an act of love and scrutinizes the psychological underpinnings and pop-cultural depictions of romantic suicide.
The narcissistic drive of self-immortalizing martyrdom is explored through placeholder archetypes that present the subject as both culprit and victim, agent and voyeur, lover and loser. Addressing the subjects only in reference, the works grapple with vanity, loneliness and the burden and promise of mortality and immortality.
– Nele Ruckelshausen
Wake me up when it’s all over. – Avicii, 2013
Lachen ist die schönste Art Zähne zu zeigen. – Werner Finck, 1968
Ich bin bereit, denn es ist Zeit für unser’n Pakt über die Ewigkeit. — Falco, Out Of The Dark, 1998
Have someone else’s will as your own, you are beautiful and you are alone. – Nico, Afraid, 1970
