Stefan Hayn

How do painting and film influence and relate to each other, and what is the relationship between personal experience and social and political developments? In Stefan Hayn’s artistic practice both forms of expression, or rather the mutual interplay of artistic and political action, merge organically in an emotional intensity. While What to put on top of Jack Smith’s Memorial Christmas Tree? is classed as an experimental film, in which Hayn  cross-wires the quest for sex and love with the practices of a collector, the two works Ein Film über den Arbeiter and Malerei heute can be described as eloquent parasites of the documentary. Both films place paid labor outside of the world of art (Hayn has worked in many places, including a pharmaceuticals plant, in the care of the old, sick, or dying, and in a printing company) within a larger economic, social, and pictorial context. The glut of images and the question as to what to do with these is the subject of Hayn’s most recent film DAHLIENFEUER, from which an excerpt will be shown. (Dietmar Schwärzler) (Dietmar Schwärzler)

Film program

Stefan Hayn, What to put on top of Jack Smith’s Memorial Christmas Tree?, 1992/1994, 7 min
Stefan Hayn, Ein Film über den Arbeiter, 1997, 18 min
Stefan Hayn, Anja-Christin Remmert, Malerei heute, 1998–2005, 61 min
Stefan Hayn, DAHLIENFEUER, 2016, ca. 10 min ((excerpt))

Followed by a conversation between Stefan Hayn and Dietmar Schwärzler

Stefan Hayn lives in Berlin. Since 1989 he has been making films that question artistic and filmic categories and resist all simple ascription. His work (films, paintings, essays) have been presented in numerous different artistic and film contexts. He has taught at the Berlin University of the Arts, focusing on the relationship between film and painting.

Dietmar Schwärzler lives in Vienna. He is a film and media presenter, free curator, and author. He works for sixpackfilm and is responsible for the contents behind the DVD label INDEX. He has planned and organized numerous film and exhibition projects. Among others, he edited the publication Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller: Photography and Film (2013) and co-edited Pink Labor on Golden Streets: Queer Art Practices (2015).