Anja Kirschner (b. 1977, Munich, Germany) and David Panos (b. 1971, Athens, Greece) are artist who live and work in London, U.K.
Their long-form films and installations collide popular culture
references, historical research and literary tropes. Their work often
involves amateurs, actors and specialists from other disciplines in the
creation of speculative histories and spectacular fantasies that and
interrogate social reality and the relation of art to class power.
While their early films Polly II - Plan for a Revolution in Docklands (2006) and Trail of the Spider (2008) were rooted in a direct engagement with the urban politics of East London, their more recent works The Last Days of Jack Sheppard (2009), The Empty Plan (2010) and Living Truthfully Under Imaginary Circumstances
(2011) have increasingly revolved around the examination of modes of
performance and narrative construction and their role in the formation
of subjectivity and political agency.
In their latest video installation, Ultimate Substance
(2012), made during 2011/2012 in Greece, the artists return to their
longstanding interest in the problems of theory and practice, the
tensions between artistic form and historical facticity and the relation
between economics and culture.
They were the winners of the Jarman Award 2011.
Recent solo exhibitions include Living Truthfully Under Imaginary
Circumstances, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2012); The Projecting
Stage, castillo/corrales, Paris (2011); The Empty Plan, Staatsgalerie
Stuttgart and Kunsthalle Oslo (2011); The Last Days of Jack Sheppard,
Chisenhale Gallery, London, CCA, Glasgow and Badischer Kunstverein,
Karlsruhe (2009). Their work was also included in the British Art Show 7
(2010/11).
They are represented by Hollybush Gardens, London and their films are distributed by the LUX and BFI.
Ultimate Substance (2012) will premiere at FACT as part of Liverpool Biennial 2012.
It will then be exhibited at Secession, Vienna (AT); Extra City Kunsthal Antwerpen, Antwerp (BE); Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (DE) and the Greek Pavillion at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (FR) during 2012/2013. A selective overview of their work will be presented at Artist Space, New York (USA) in October 2012 and at CentrePasquArt, Biel/Bienne (CH) in June 2013.