Elmar Hess

In the videos, photographs and installations by the artist Elmar Hess, private conflicts are understood as the result of moves forced by technology or systemic structures. The individual events are here equated to an imaginary cascade of historical and political events. In his most recent project “Freedom is not for free”, a lovers’ conflict ends in front of a war criminal tribunal; the free decisions of the heart have mutated into punishable offences. Behind the individual drama, the work describes a picture of society in which the fulfilment of human wishes are prevented by the confines of the system, media manipulation and lobbyists.