Guido van der Werve vystavuje v Secession svoj posledny film venovany Federicovi Chopinovi a Alexandrovi Velkemu. Je to najlepsie co som tu doteraz videla a urcite si to pojdem pozriet znova. Odporucam. 54' / zacina kazdu celu hodinu / k videniu do 19.01.2014




"In the 56-minute film Nummer veertien, home van der Werve completes a 1,700 km triathlon – seven times the stretch of the Ironman triathlon. Swimming, cycling and running he covered the distance from Warsaw to Paris to retrace, in the opposite direction, the route that Chopin's heart travelled before being buried.
The division of the plot into three parts not only corresponds to the triathlon but also to the requiem that van der Werve composed himself for this occasion. It is also used as a soundtrack. Inserted into the main thread of the narrative – long durational sporting performance – we find various episodes with situations in the lives of Frédéric Chopin and Alexander the Great. The metaphorical potential of the persistently realised physical activity is plumbed with its full ambiguity, not least through this multilayered construction: it incorporates self-determination and self-fulfilment as well as ambition and achievement, but also isolation and the pointlessness of existence in repetition. Although van der Werve's works have obvious autobiographical traits and deal with his personal passions, he generally remains in the background as a person and artist-subject, as this allows him to create intense moods and space for the viewers' associations.

"Abstracting my personal memories and experiences is a process that I always apply in my work. I try to make my work as open as possible by doing this; I abstract the narrative until only the mood is left. Mood is a medium that everybody can relate to and, more importantly, everyone has their own relationship to the mood. The artist stops being important." (Guido van der Werve, Interview with Xander Karskens)"