Ritratto Romano, colour, sound, Italy, 2006

One of Christoph Brech’s recent video films, which originated in the Campo Verano Cemetery in Rome, approaches the medium of painting as one of remembrance. Instead of photographs, which were often worked into the gravestones, one finds in the Campo Verano portraits of men, woman and children buried there, painted around 1850. In his video, Brech lets the portraits gradually blend one into the next.

"As if gazing at the viewer from a distant past, the eyes of these nameless dead, whose features melt into one another in a constant metamorphosis, remain in the same position on the paintings, until finally, in this sad but beautiful requiem, all personal attributes seem obliterated, and gender and individuality merge together in death.” (Thomas Wagner)