Marx (2021)

MARX is Olaf Nicolai’s audacious 24-hour film created from a single shot of a sole statue: a vast bronze bust of Karl Marx, installed 50 years ago in Nicolai’s hometown of Chemnitz (formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt). Shot in one take on the 2020 autumnal equinox, when day and night are equal lengths, and screened on the same date, MARX transforms this iconic figure into a kind of unnatural landscape, subject to constant change beneath the evolving light of night and day. Turning notions of time upside down and inside out, this 24-hour film will be screened at 17 worldwide venues all at once – like an artificial sun rotating around the Earth.