Now Wave: Beth B – Glowing

With “Now Wave: Beth B – Glowing”, silent green in Berlin-Wedding is dedicating an extensive exhibition and retrospective to the American filmmaker.

Beth B (born 1955) began her artistic work in the late 1970s in New York City as a provocateur in the No Wave scene, an underground movement whose name is an ironic reference to the New Wave pop culture. In this context, musicians and visual artists confronted popular forms with avant-garde anti-art. Her filmography includes more than thirty short and feature films, including works in hybrid form that merge fiction and document. Collaboration with other artists is an integral aspect of her work, for example in film portraits of Lydia Lunch and Ida Applebroog as well as in her collaborative work with musician Jim Coleman (Cop Shoot Cop, Human Impact).

Beth B's “Glowing” exhibition in the Betonhalle and the retrospective at silent green creates a uniquely innovative approach that reflects the universality of intimate and painful struggles and the possibility for catharsis through creative expression. Each person may have their own individual experience that resonates as an isolated story, yet when strung together, the audiences can find shared connections as well.

On several evenings, the large-scale projected films are accompanied by live music, and spoken word performances. A second exhibition presents the sound and video installation "Near Death" (working title), which was specifically designed for the premises of the former crematorium. In addition, numerous films by Beth B can be seen in Germany for the first time as part of the retrospective "The War Is Never Over" in the Kuppelhalle of silent green.

Artistic direction: Beth B, Bettina Ellerkamp
Music Composition: Jim Coleman
Artists: No Anger, Vincent Dubuis, Nick Flynn, Annie Bandez, Robert O. Leaver, and Evelyn Frantti.

Film series/retrospective: silent green Kuppelhalle, Berlin: August 2024; Performances/exhibition: silent green Betonhalle, Berlin: August 2024