David Claerbout

For his new work, Piano Player, which is being shown in the present exhibition at the Rüdiger Schöttle Gallery, David Claerbout has worked purely in the medium of film: a young woman runs across a dark, deserted street in the pouring rain. She takes shelter in a house, where she can hear someone playing a piano, but only very faintly. She follows the sound of the piano until she finds, in one of the rooms, a young girl sitting alone at a piano, totally engrossed in her playing. The music, which until then had been but an accompaniment, suddenly assumes the magnitude of a symphony and now becomes the actual focal point of the narrative. The young woman listens to the music for a while and then leaves the house, disappearing into the rainy night.         

David Claerbout operates in this short, excerpt-like film sequence with extremely dark images and a vague story that seems to be about absence, arrival and renewed departure. The music –  it seems – is the only element which, for just a few moments, transports us beyond the constant repetition of the images.