KÄTHE KRUSE & DIE TÖDLICHE DORIS – Video archives

In the Tell Chapel on the Casino esplanade (outdoors), the films by Käthe Kruse and Die Tödliche Doris will be shown continuously, one after the other. Conceived as a sequel to the exhibition « Danke! Die Tödliche Doris », this screening consists of performance recordings, Super8 films and videos of the artist group Die Tödliche Doris, active in West Berlin in the 1980s. Käthe Kruse in turn recycles this story, this group, what is left of it and what can be done with it, by reading the entire contract stipulating how their industrial kitsch non-music, films, sculptures, paintings, radio plays, books and costumes can be reused or not. See the exhibition at Circuit.

List of films:

Das Lügenmeer, Die Tödliche Doris

“The films are all music-video-clips of Die Tödliche Doris, made in the years 1981 to 1987. Some like “Naturkatastrophenkonzert and -ballet” are made for the WDR-Rockpalast, and show the katasthrophes read aout of an dictionary for children. “Übermutti” is made for Barcelona-TV and “Maria” is a song about a little girls who sinks into mud, and made for Spanish TV, and all the other clips are done for a video-festival in Riehen near Basel in 1984. We have been invited to produce three days long music-Clips, editing them one day and performe them the last day in the Reithalle on the Renkenhof. The clips “Rauskommen” and “Ausflug” are made on the documenta 8 in Kassel, 1987.”

Doris meets Doris, Die Tödliche Doris

“These films are all from Live-Concerts from 81 to 87, treated and compiled by Akiko Hada in 1993.”

Doris at Babylon, Käthe Kruse und Wolfgang Müller

“This film is showing a concert Wolfgang Müller and Käthe Kruse did at the Babylon-Cinema in Berlin about texts and critics of Die Tödliche Doris and also singing songs of the group. The concert was in 1994.”

Der Vertrag, Käthe Kruse

“In this film I am reading the contract of Wolfgang Müller, Nikolaus Utermöhlen and Käthe Kruse we signed in 1994 to make sure, that only we three members of Die Tödliche Doris are allowed to work with the material and ideas.”

Le Sexe Rouge, Käthe Kruse

“I am singing the names of the mountain range in Les Diablerets and did an artpeace with the line of the range in glas. The film which is projected on my dress is the little range I filmed in the hat I am wearing for the performance. It happened in the Zwinger Galerie in Berlin in 1996.”

Lieder in Leder, Käthe Kruse

“I transformed my drums into an artpeace and when my daughter Edda is playing she performs it back into a drum set, but with a transformed sound. I am singing “Chöre&Soli” from Die Tödliche Doris. 2013, Zwinger Galerie, Berlin.”

Krieg, Käthe Kruse

“I am reading 30 minutes long all the wars in the world, started in the year zero and I am reading as fast as possible, but I did not reach the present. This performance I did with my daughters Edda and Klara Kruse Rosset for KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin in 2014.”