On February 18, the exhibition „You killed me first“ opened at KW Berlin. It features short films by the „Cinema of Transgression“, an artistic movement that came up in New York in the 1980s. Their aim was to attack the predominating moral and social values by showing extreme forms of sex and violence. Meaning: rape, men beating up women, people shooting heroin and many more exhilierant things. More after the jump.
The remarkable thing is: an exhibition like this could not have been done in most parts of the world due to political, religious or cultural reasons. Even in some Western countries it would have caused a scandal to show these films at a museum.
But what about Berlin? Noting happened. There is no scandal: no Feminist group is protesting, not even „BILD“ reported on it. At the exhibition opening people just laughed about what they saw on the screens. So why is that? Is it because Germany or at least Berlin is so liberal, or is it because we are so degraded that we are used to these kind of things? Well, I guess you need to find out for yourself.
This video gives a pretty good overview of what this exhibition is about:
And here is an elegant dialogue from Richard Kern’s short film „Fingered“ (what a title!):
One of the first films in the exhibition is „Nymphomania“. It is amazing that YouTube did not ban this so far: basically, it shows how a Pan “makes love” to a Nymph until she dies. Sorry about the bad quality (it is much better at the exhibition).
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststr. 6
Subway: Weinmeister Straße
Opening Hours: Tue – Sun 12 – 7 pm, Thur 12 – 9 pm
Admission: 6 Euro, concessions 4 Euro
Credits: 1) Richard Kern, Fingered, 1986, Film Still. 2) Richard Kern and Nick Zedd, The Manhattan Love Suicides: Thrust In Me, 1985, Film Still. 3) Richard Kern, The Manhattan Love Suicides: Woman at the Wheel, 1985, Film Still.
