JULIAN ROSEFELDT
EUPHORIA

RUHRTRIENNALE, UNESCO WELTERBE ZOLLVEREIN, ESSEN, GERMANY
25 AUGUST – 10 SEPTEMBER 2022

World premiere of Euphoria, a multidisciplinary film installation filmed in Kiev, Sofia, Berlin and New York, and realised in collaboration with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the composer Samy Moussa (additional music by Cassie Kinoshi) and five of the most acclaimed contemporary jazz drummers of our days – Terri Lyne Carrington, Peter Erskine, Antonio Sanchez, Eric Harland, and Yissy Garcia.
Euphoria is a tour de force through the history of economic theory. Quoting from original text material of famous economists, writers, philosophers, and poets, and covering 2,000 years of the history of human greed, the project tries to translate the complicated genesis of our neoliberal market economy into an accessible visual language and everyday situations. Fragments of quotations from the likes of Donna Haraway, Mark Fisher, Ayn Rand, Silvia Federici, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Karl Marx, Thomas Hobbes, Ursula K. Le Guin, William Faulkner, Socrates, John Steinbeck, Virginie Despentes, Milton Friedman, Theodor W. Adorno, Albert Einstein, Warren Buffet, and many others, are spoken, sung and performed by actors such as Giancarlo Esposito, Cate Blanchett, and Virginia Newcomb.
Frederic Jameson wrote: “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”. Rosefeldt’s new film installation asks why capitalism until today seems to be without alternative, and why it continues to be so irresistible even to people who are aware of its destructive character. Capital, money and greed are key concepts of our time. Today, the destructive potential of a euphoric, unlimited consumption binge and the seldom questioned motto of continual economic growth unfolds globally and limitlessly. Euphoria is a type of cinematic re-enactment of both pro-capitalistic and capitalist critique.
Commissioned and produced by Park Avenue Armory.
Co-commissioned by Ruhrtriennale, Holland Festival and Rising Melbourne, in Association with Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte.

© Film stills Julian Rosefeldt