The exhibition centres on Seidl's ongoing investigation of the condition humaine. Seidl's work is characterised as disruptive because the viewer is confronted with his or her own prejudices about how people live, what they think, how they furnish their homes, how they entertain themselves, and how they try to find security in their own way.
Eye Filmmuseum presents Ulrich Seidl – Über das Leben, die Liebe und den Tod, the first exhibition – and the first complete film retrospective – of the renowned Austrian filmmaker in the Netherlands. With much early, unknown and new (film) work, an exhibition is created that confronts the visitor with the lives of a number of seemingly ordinary citizens in their search for love, happiness and affection in a late-capitalist society in which meaning has been replaced by consumerism.
I look beyond the beautiful surface and try to enter the personal, intimate atmosphere within. That sometimes looks different than people would wish, and that feels uncomfortable.