Catherina Cramer & Giulietta Ockenfuß, Unleash the Beast – Chapter 3: El Axolotl de Xochimilco (excerpt), 2023, HD video, 39‘43‘‘, color, sound, © and courtesy of the artists

Catherina Cramer & Giulietta Ockenfuß, Unleash the Beast – Chapter 3: El Axolotl de Xochimilco, 2023, videostill, HD video, 39‘43‘‘, color, sound, © and courtesy of the artists


Catherina Cramer & Giulietta Ockenfuß, Unleash the Beast – Chapter 3: El Axolotl de Xochimilco, 2023, videostill, HD video, 39‘43‘‘, color, sound, © and courtesy of the artists

Online screening
10 December, 4:00 p.m. (CET) – 24 December, 4:00 p.m. (CET)

An edition will be published to accompany the screening.

A new main character is introduced, the axolotl. Described in pre-Hispanic myths as the goddess of eternity, it is constantly changing his form. It becomes a cornfield, a two-limbed plant and a teenager, roaming the increasingly dark and polluted waters of his native Xochimilco. Finally, Axolotl decides to escape its possible exploitation as a scientific subject and the dreariness of artificial biotopes, that awaits it, by taking a hormone. He transforms into a salamander, goes ashore and turns to his own (research-) history. It becomes part of the political movement "Otherly Liberation Fighters". Here it meets a time-traveling reporter who is very interested in his person. She accompanies it during its transformation. From Angelica Garcia, a doctor and housewife who has lived in Xochimilco for forty years and knows the area well, the reporter receives additional information about the radical transformation of Mexico City, whose prehistoric predecessor Tenochtitlan was built on a lake.

Catherina Cramer (*1988, Wesel, Germany) and Giulietta Ockenfuß (*1986, Frankfurt am Main) started working together in 2019, while remaining individual practices. They share a studio in Berlin and Frankfurt. Ockenfuß studied fine arts at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the classes of Prof. Tal R, Prof. Christopher Williams and Prof. Rita McBride and graduated as Meisterschülerin in 2010. Cramer on her part studied Fine Arts at the Kunstakademie Münster and Düsseldorf and received her Meisterschülerin letter in 2019 from Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. They participated in international exhibitions such as the Rosenberg Gallery (New York, USA), V-Art Center (Shanghai, CHN), Stroboskop Artspace (New York, USA), The Others Art Fair (Torino, IT), Cork Street Galleries, in partnership with Serpentine (London, GB) and La Guardia (Oaxaca, MX). In Germany, the Museum Folkwang (Essen), the Julia Stoschek Collection (Düsseldorf) and the Kunsthalle Münster have shown their work, as well as the Kunsthaus NRW Kornelimünster (Aachen), the Kunstmuseum Solingen (Solingen), the Dokfest of the Kunstverein (Kassel), the Dortmunder U, Robert Grunenberg Gallery (Berlin), Synnika Space (Frankfurt), Mouches Volantes (Cologne), the K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westphalen (Düsseldorf) and the nomadic Gallery L187. They have also received several grants, including the Werner Deutsch Preis für Junge Kunst  (2023), the Maecenia Stiftung Frankfurt grant (2022), the "Junge Szene" Kulturstiftung NRW working grant (2019 and 2022), the Hessische Kulturstiftung working grant (2020), the Hessische Kulturstiftung travel grant (2019).

Invitation postcard