New Julian Rosefeldt Film Installation Makes North American Debut At Park Ave Armory This Fall

Park Avenue Armory will close out its 2022 season with the North American premiere of a new commission by German artist and filmmaker Julian Rosefeldt.

Returning to the Armory after the 2016 presentation of his critically acclaimed film installation Manifesto, Rosefeldt will take over the 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall with Euphoria, a visually and aurally resplendent multi-channel film installation that considers the destructive potential of capital, greed, and consumption.

On view from November 29, 2022 through January 8, 2023, Euphoria is scored with original music by Samy Moussa and additional music by Cassie Kinoshi, performed on film by 140 singers from the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and five acclaimed jazz drummers: Grammy Award winner Terri Lyne Carrington, Grammy Award winner Peter Erskine, Yissy García, Eric Harland, and Antonio Sanchez. Making its debut at the Armory, Euphoria is co-commissioned by Holland Festival, Ruhrtriennale Festival of the Arts, RISING Melbourne, and Sydney Festival in Association with Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte.

"Following the success of Manifesto, which was so well received by audiences at the Armory and around the world, we are thrilled to work with Julian to bring his latest project to the Drill Hall," said Rebecca Robertson, the Armory's Founding President and Executive Producer. "Euphoria reflects a continuation of the Armory's commitment to providing artists with the creative and physical space to push the boundaries of their practice, and provide relevant, thought-provoking interrogations of timely issues."

"Euphoria represents a milestone moment in Julian's illustrious career, as he delves into longstanding motifs central to his practice, including the use of text fragments, and applies his intellectual meditations on capitalism and economic theory to this project," said Pierre Audi, the Armory's Marina Kellen French Artistic Director. "The resulting installation is an artistic achievement that serves as a critique of our consumer society, a contemplation on greed and its centrality to human nature, and a moment to reflect on the ways in which the creation of wealth has supplanted humanity's most valuable creation-art."

Euphoria offers an absurdist reflection on the history of human greed, the consequences of mass consumption, the dangers of unchecked economic growth, and the interweavement of capitalism and other timely socio-political issues such as feminism and post-colonialism. The work will be presented in an immersive arena-like setting in the Armory's Drill Hall, where audiences will be able to move freely amidst a surrounding ring of large-scale video screens. The central film, shot on location in various cities around the world-including a pre-war Kyiv-depicts imagined discussions on greed and scenes of euphoric production and consumption-among them a bank lobby that fills with surreal magic tricks, dance choreographies, and acrobatics; five homeless men contemplating economic theory; and a singing tiger in a supermarket, voiced by Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett. These scenes are scripted with reframed quotations from economists, business magnates, writers, philosophers, celebrities, and other notable historic and contemporary figures-from Sophocles, Warren Buffett, Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman to Audre Lorde, John Steinbeck, Donna Haraway, and Snoop Dogg-creating unexpected juxtapositions of language and context that bring new meaning, relevance, and impact to the words. The accompanying musical elements will be projected simultaneously on a surrounding ring of screens, with the singers of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus-projected life-size-functioning almost as the commenting chorus in classical Greek theater as they echo fragments of text from the dialogues and monologues in the central film. A group of five of America's most acclaimed jazz drummers perform a rhythmic score mimicking the constant hum of the machinery of capitalism.

"Euphoria is the result of my longstanding interest in the texts of economic theory and offers the space for dialogue and reflection as we witness society's ongoing euphoric, unlimited consumption binge," said Julian Rosefeldt. "As the seldom questioned motto of continual economic growth unfolds globally and limitlessly, my work addresses the lack of an alternative. The seductive aspect of capitalism concerns all of us, because as individuals we are all part of the system, which extends far beyond economics to create imbalances and inequalities in the social and political issues of our time."

Tickets start at $18 plus fees and can be purchased at armoryonpark.org or by phone through the Armory Box Office at (212) 933-5812, Monday through Friday from 10am to 6pm.