Peter Roehr, Ringer, 1965
German artist Peter Roehr (1944–1968) made collages, sound montages, and films employing the guiding principle of strict, mechanical repetition. Roehr used identical fragments from multiple prints of advertising films to show the same thing – for instance a woman flipping her hair or a view from a moving car – over and over. Roehr claimed, ‘The story-line of my films is given in a simple sentence, e.g., "A Woman Dries Her Hair". Through repetition of this scene the initially perceived situation begins to dissolve and expand.’ Roehr’s untimely death prevented him from realising a fuller body of work or reaching a wider audience.
This rare screening of Roehr’s films is presented in conjunction with the Tate Modern display of sculptures by Charlotte Posenenske, a close friend of Roehr’s whose work shares his interest in serial, industrial forms. Both artists were in sympathy with American Minimalist art at a time during the 1960s before this work found much acceptance in German galleries.
The screening will be introduced with a lecture performance by Los Angeles artist William E. Jones who will address the relationship between Roehr, Posenenske and the gallerist Paul Maenz. A related essay by Jones can be seen here. The screening will also include Jones’s film Film Montages (for Peter Roehr), an appropriated video work that also takes simple repetition as its first principle, arranging fragments of gay porn films into a musical composition at once austere and erotic.
Programme
Introduction by William E. Jones
Film Montages (for Peter Roehr)
William E. Jones, USA 2006, video, 11 min
Film-Montagen I-III
Peter Roehr, Germany 1965, 16 mm transferred to video, 23 min
