“Enduring boredom”: Heiner Goebbels and Anne Gräfe in conversation extd.

In her book “Langeweile Aushalten - Kontingenzerfahrung in der Gegenwartskunst” [Enduring boredom - the experience of contingency in contemporary art], Anne Gräfe explores the power of aesthetic boredom: What can we expect from boredom? Where does this mood lead us as a special aesthetic experience? Heiner Goebbels’ cross-genre artistic works reveal aesthetic, social, philosophical and often political motifs in this area of human experience, resulting in a plea for the endurance of radical contingency. In the conversation between Heiner Goebbels and Anne Gräfe, the immanent logic and ideas of time as an assertion of a disruptive experience of the dialectic of aesthetic boredom are opened up in the context of some of Heiner Goebbels’ artistic works and the forms of attention offered by the aesthetic experience of boredom are explored.

Professor Dr. h.c. Heiner Goebbels is a composer and theater maker, was Professor of Artistic Practice at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies at Justus Liebig University Giessen from 1999 to 2018, was Director of the Ruhrtriennale - International Festival of the Arts from 2012-2014 and President of the Hessian Theater Academy from 2006 to 2018. His artistic oeuvre includes scenic concerts, audio pieces, compositions for ensemble and large orchestra, as well as sound and video installations, which have been exhibited at the Documenta 1987 and 1997, at the Center Pompidou, Paris 2000, in London 2012, Lyon 2014, Dresden 2016, Moscow 2017 and many other places. Goebbels’ installation “Landscape 3” will be on display at the Kunstraum.