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True Stories (Revolving Door)

True Stories (Revolving Door)
/6
    • True Stories (Revolving Door)
  • 2001
  • video, color, sound
  • 4min, 46sec
Carola Dertnig produced her video “Revolving Door” in the summer of 2001 when, as part of an artist in residence program, she had a studio on the 91st floor of Tower I of the World Trade Center in New York. In this work, as in the performances in her “True Stories” series (1997–2003), Dertnig employs the slapstick genre. The “True Stories” are based on the performativity of everyday actions and on authentic episodes that are experienced as embarrassing mishaps. In “Revolving Door”, Dertnig, laden down with materials, attempts to get through a revolving door of the World Trade Center with a trolley. Her real experience of getting stuck in the entrance in the hectic crush of passers-by became part of the project, as did her confrontation with the safety deficits of the WTC. In the summer of 2001, Dertnig already portrayed the WTC as a safety hazard; as part of the project she studied the bomb attack of 1993, the report on which revealed that the WTC did not have sufficient entrances and exits. U.M.P.