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Melanie Jame Wolf: Highness. 28.10.2017, Sophiensaele, Berlin.

The queen of something, vigorous poses, the servants of your majesty; horse steps in perfect costumes and well-designed props; a steel structure for multiple purposes: a show jumping fence and a cage and a folding screen.

The narcissism of a queen metamorphoses into vulnerability—the fall of the pop figure, Wolf dubbing Diana: „I live from the heart, not the head” reminding us how we all enjoyed watching the nude descending. Virginity, marriage, (in)fertility et cetera—the fragility of the normative codes—symbolized by a ceramic cone, break into pieces like berries falling on a linoleum sheet of a supermarket and scatter around—who will crawl on the floor to collect the leftovers?

„God save our gracious queen” with the utmost respect, your most humble servant watched an excerpt of the eight-hour video (single shot) Night of Swords (2017) accompanying the chinks reverberating in the foyer, recalled a Christmas speech saying: may it be screened with more attention. Yet, how about long (Sofia Coppola style) Marie Antoinette mo(ve)ments, besides Jane Fonda aerobics; how about delving into various time zones as the queer dramaturgy, splashing long boring stretched time fragments— say, the queen sleeping with her enormous white wig in a dance studio—instead of cumshots squirting out from squeezed sponges?