Sven Johne: Дорогой Владимир Путин (Dear Vladimir Putin)

In Dear Vladimir Putin

In Dear Vladimir Putin, we listen to the worried words of Dresden resident Peter Bittel, played by Gottfried Richter, who turns to the Russian president with his complaints, seeking help. Putin's strong hand appears to him to be the best answer to the increasingly complex questions of the present. Delivered in broken Russian, the voice bears witness to an East German past whose idealized tales of the hard labor on the Druzhba (i.e. friendship) gas pipeline have become a comforting memory of a different form of belonging. Paired with simple, distanced, and cautious images, Dear Vladimir Putin creates an exemplary portrait of a doubtful and distressed character of the kind that exists in large numbers in both East and West Germany today. Johne's fictional letter condenses their very real protest, in which an aggrieved disillusionment with democracy and liberal values escalates into a longing for assertive, authoritarian decision-makers, of which Vladimir Putin is just one example among many.

For two decades now

For two decades now, Johne's fictional studies explore what he calls the "crisis of the West", which was triggered by the neoliberal transformation of society, leaving a vacuum in its wake that has become a hotbed for an increasing nihilism. Johne studies the complex entanglement of yesterday and today also through the way he produces images: actor Gottfried Richter enjoyed early success as young communist Viktor Kleist in the feature film Unterwegs zu Lenin (On the Road to Lenin; 1969). In the role of Peter Bittel, Johne now portrays him as a man who looks back wistfully, and whose ideals have morphed into totalitarian longings in the face of the manifold crises of the present. In his video works, Johne skillfully conjures up an emotional aura through the precise employment of images, voice, and narration. We regularly encounter his protagonists from a first-person perspective, which allows us to attend very closely to these fictional lives, opening a world that lies far beyond the exemplary.

With Dear Vladimir Putin

With Dear Vladimir Putin, we enter the mental space of a person marked by disappointment and frustration, one who no longer feels that his concerns are addressed by society’s pillars such as representative democracy and art. Without glossing over and without immediately objecting, Dear Vladimir Putin is a painful experience that hopes to kickstart a conversation.

Sven Johne, born 1976 in Bergen/Rügen, East Germany, lives and works in Berlin. 1996–1998 German Studies, Journalism, and Onomastics at Leipzig University. 1998–2004 Media Art and Photography at Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig (Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig), 2006 Meisterschüler in the class of Timm Rautert. 2008 International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York City. 2010–2011 Guest Professor at HGB Leipzig.