A video installation composed of a performance by the artist alongside archival film scenes centered on queer and transgender content. Presented across two projections, the film juxtaposes explicit and everyday expressions of non-normative sexuality: from people dancing freely at a lesbian party to Charlotte Charlaque's reverent smile, and the provocative speeches of far-right homosexual politicians. This collage is underscored by a rich soundtrack featuring recitations from Karl Heinrich Ulrichs’s seminal 19th-century texts advocating for decriminalizing homosexual love, interwoven with atmospheric and pulsating soundscapes by English artist Rory Pilgrim. These elements immerse viewers in a poetic and political reflection on the histories and expressions of excluded sexualities and genders.
Philipp Gufler was born in Augsburg and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He attended artist residencies at De Ateliers, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2015-2017), Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Maine, USA (2019) and Delfina Foundation, London, UK (2021), among others. He lives in Amsterdam and Munich. He is an active member of the self-organized Forum Queeres Archiv München. Philipp Gufler "explores matters of queer imagery, questioning the Western historiography, in which heterosexuality and a binary gender system define the social norm". He spans various media in his practice, including silkscreen prints on fabric and mirrors, artist books, performances and video installations. His artist book and video installation Projection on the Crisis (Gauweilereein in Munich "takes a kaleidoscopic and retrospective look at the early days of the AIDS crisis in Germany". In the ongoing series of quilts, Philipp Gufler refers to artists, writers, magazines and lost queer spaces. The screen-printed fabrics have been exhibited at the Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart and at Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism among other venues. In 2020, he produced a short film and a zine about the singer and entertainer Lana Kaiser.