CLEMENS KRAUSS ‘Isolation Consultation’ video reports

June 4, 2020

With his performance project “Isolation Consultation” at Haus am Waldsee, the visual artist, painter, doctor and trained psychoanalyst Clemens Krauss spoke to people online in over 180 individual psychoanalytic sessions of 50 minutes each. In video reports, he reflects on the extreme situation of the immediate present, but also on life in general.

View more video reports recorded by the artist HERE on the Haus am Waldsee website.

On 25 April 2020, Krauss goes on to say, “There is a common dynamic which is shared in all of the encounters and this dynamic is like going through different stages, similar to a kind of trauma experience. The lockdown as a sudden impact has been followed by a period of denial, which many of us have experienced like a form of holidays. But, very soon a phase of disillusionment and depression began. This is where we meet many visitors at the moment. … I also see these stages in my own personal and daily life. of course, this is just one very personal observation, which refers to my interaction in all of those individual sessions: I was wondering, if this trauma situation continues and goes on, maybe these stages will come back in cyclic ways? … But it is still very very helpful for me, within all this situation of stress, having the opportunity to laugh with people around the world in Spanish, English and German.”

Clemens Krauss, born 1981 in Graz, Austria, works as an artist on the notion of the contemporary human being as a performative embodiment of social and media experience. In his numerous international exhibitions he has not only shown paintings, which as wall paintings are often site-specific, but has also performed his consulting hour performance in analogue space.

Out of the situation of restricted freedoms and a threatening pandemic, the artist has captured a general mood, which he communicates in short videos. His clients came from all over the world, from Europe, Asia and South America. Conversations were conducted in German, English and Spanish. From the point of view of both the artist and the psychoanalyst, a unique reflection on an extraordinary, global condition emerged.

Photo from consultation installation at Kunstraum Innsbruck for Krauss’ solo show ‘Antechamber’ in 2019.