Benjamin Heisenberg’s immersive installation “Die Zwölf Geschworenen” (Twelve Angry Men) (2007-2020) explores the interrelations of the artist’s imprinting and self-perception at the interweave of personal, family, and national history. Video works, pictures and historical artifacts form an environment that is evidence of Heisenberg’s incessant, active process of self-reflection. The installation is made up of a series of suitcases and boxes, all of which come from the attic of Heisenberg’s grandmother and great-grandmother’s house and contain objects and newspaper clippings that evoke significant moments and eras. Twelve little ‘men’ with a magnifying glass for a head are placed throughout the suitcases, searching through the family history to make sense of it. They also give the installation the title Twelve Angry Men, after the 1957 feature film by Sydney Lumet. Around the suitcases are videos that deal essayistically with four terms that Heisenberg strongly associates with the history of the last century in Germany: Manipulation, Fiction, Faith and Romanticism. All the films are made from material closely related to Heisenberg or his friends and refer to his private personal history.

Heisenberg’s works have been exhibited at ZKM Karlsruhe, Haus der Kunst Munich, the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Videonale Bonn, MoMA, New York and are permanently installed at NS-Dokumentationszentrum (Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism), Munich. He has been honored with the First Steps Award; several Max Ophüls Awards; the Bavarian Cultural Award; the Bavarian Film Award; the Cultural Award of the City of Würzburg as well as the Austrian Film Award.

Heisenberg was born in Tübingen in 1974, he lives and works in Luzern.

Founded in 2005, the gallery’s program is best described as “off-beat.” Emerging artists work with traditional mediums like painting and sculpture, but their site-specific, media-blasting approaches stand out. Artists such as Benjamin Heisenberg, Hajnal Németh, Bjørn Melhus and Jan St. Werner share an affinity for film, space, and performativity, reflecting the gallery’s experimental ethos. The gallery has occupied unusual spaces, including a former bunker in Kreuzberg and a former crematorium in Berlin. It began in a small room in Graz’s historic center, maintaining its unconventional approach, the gallery explores art’s potential for political action, often juxtaposing artists with performative legacies.