GABRIEL
Gabriel & Schindele Der größte Zauberer (Marianische Antiphonen IIIb)
GABRIEL is a tale and cosmos by performance artist Edwin W. Moes and art historian JMH Schindele. Since 2019 they are operating as the artist duo Gabriel & Schindele. The main character of this narrative is called Gabriel and is embodied by Moes.
Gabriel & Schindele Karte 15.9.2015 − 7.8.2019
WEG
15th September 2015 to the end of August 2016
“The greatest magician would be the one who could enchant himself
at the same time in such a way that his magic would seem to him like strange,
self-empowering phenomena Could that not be the case with us?”
Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis)
Eterno Retorno
Die drei Pforten
3rd of January, 2016
Spanien – Santiago de Compostela – Plaza de la
Platerias, Plaza de Quintana, Plaza del Obradoiro
Camera: ???????????
Voice recording: Eterno Retorno
5th of February, 2017, Oujda, Marokko
Gabriel’s pilgrimage began on 15th September 2015 in Egelshoek 12 (Hilversum) in the Netherlands. It is continuing to this day. As work of art, this pilgrimage bears the title WEG.
On 13th November, while he was crossing France on the Way of St. James, there had been terror attacks in Paris. Gabriel witnessed the transforming of the squares in the country’s villages and towns into a sea of mourning, lights, and flowers. After 110 days of walking, he reached Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
With the idea of honouring the 89 victims of the concert in Bataclan, Gabriel entered the University of Arts in nearby Pontevedra. He was looking for potential collaborators for a performance, in which each person was supposed to represent one of the dead.
There he met Laura Fociños Mantecón, a student and photographer, who accompanied Gabriel’s work in the region during the following months. This publication is the result of their cooperation.
Profound cuts were being made in the Spanish social system at that time, with large sections of the population taking to the streets to protest. Gabriel joined the protest movement, offering himself and his body as an activist.
Between March and August 2016, about 20 actions were created in collaboration with the photographer Laura Fociños Mantecón.
Dear Father II
„Und dein nicht zu achten“
17th of March 2016
Spanien - Pontevedra - Plaza de la Peregrina
In a two-hour improvisation within a primordial space 'drawn' with black armor tape, GABRIEL performs a showdown. In this case a confrontation between him and his father; told through repetitive movements and his voice.
Manifestación
12th of May 2016
Spanien - Vigo - Großdemonstration
Plaza de España und umliegende Straßen
UNICORN
Von der Verkündung zur Verkörperung
30th of May 2016
Spanien - Pontevedra - Plaza de la Herrería
UNICORN III
Proletarian Abetment
1st of June 2016
Spanien - Vigo - Großdemonstration - Krankenhausgelände
Hospital do Meixoeiro
14 days after the main demonstration at the Plaza d'Espagna in Vigo, the clinic staff decided to occupy the Hospital do Meixoeiro. GABRIEL steps in front of the demonstrators a second time. They are resisting the privatisation of the health system in Galicia. He carves the word AMOR into his chest after the so-called stripdown; then he blindfolds his eyes, puts shackles around his pulse and walks into the middle of the protesters.
UNICORN V
Eucalypto
4th of June 2016
Spanien - Pontevedra - Großdemonstration
Avenida de Avelino Montero Ríos
During an annual demonstration called Marcha Contra ENCE/EINOSA, GABRIEL performs an artistic protest act. Simultaneously with the burning of a square bundle of eucalyptus leaves and splinters of wood, he cuts the word FORA into his chest with a blade.
Glastagebücher
Die Reinigung des Hauses hinter dem Licht
12th of June 2016
Spanien - Pontevedra - Plaza de la Leña
An intimate play: Night, 4 black books, 4 cornerstones, 4 words and a man inside the primordial space. GABRIEL repeats in about one and a half hours and in four similar acts a sequence of movements: reading aloud, burning, cutting and transcendental dance.
(There is a book Father, a book Mother, a book Edwin, a book GABRIEL).
WEG
August 2016 to Winter 2018
At the end of August 2016, he set off again, with the aim of visiting two other places of pilgrimage central to Christianity – Jerusalem and Rome. His cooperation with Julian M. H. Schindele also dates back to time.
Gabriel had hoped to reach Jerusalem by way of North Africa; this plan failed at the border between Morocco and Algeria, however, due to his subsequent expulsion.
Touched by and identifying with the fate of the refugees risking everything, the series of performances to die for originated in 2017 and, as a continuation of this, the series rise in 2018.
Voice recording: Die Zeichen
6th of December 2016
Voice recording: Marocco – Monolog an Julian
2nd of December 2016
Voice recording: Auf einem Weg der plötzlich aufhören wird
29th of December 2016
Voice recording: Das Schwarze Land das mich zur Wüste führte
29th of December 2016
to die for II
17th of June 2017
Carboneras – Playa de Carboneras
Camera: anonymous teenagers
rise III
EMPATÍA
1st of April 2018
Spanien – Madrid – Glorieta de Embajadores
in collaboration with Ze Carrion
Camera: Salomé Caballero
WEG
Winter 2018 to August 2019
DIE MARIANISCHEN ANTIPHONEN
“I was playing with Jacinta and Franco high up on the slope of the Cova da Iria.
Suddenly we saw something like a flash of lightning. ‘We’d better go home.’I told my cousins.
‘That was a flash of lightning. A storm is probably approaching.’”
Lúcia dos Santos was one of the three shepherd children and a Portuguese nun.
Gabriel spent the winter of 2018/2019 in Fisterra in Galicia. There he dreamed about Maria and felt a calling to go to Fátima, the shrine of Mary, in Portugal.
He stopped in Coimbra's old university town, approximately 100 km north of Fátima. A serendipitous encounter led him to the theatre group CITAC and Mafalda Prata, a photographer. When they heard about his mission, they offered their assistance. This resulted in the prologue of the performance series Marianische Antiphonen in July 2019.
In August of the same year, the photographer Stefan Hähnel sought out Gabriel. Together with Gabriel’s four black dogs, Hähnel experienced Gabriel’s everyday life on the streets, in the villages and the wilderness around Fátima. At a holm oak, it was here that the Virgin Mary is supposed to have appeared several times to three shepherd children during the summer of 1917.
The Marianischen Antiphonen I – III, a narrative performance in three chapters, was thus created in and around Fátima. In these, Gabriel sets out in search of the female deity of Christianity and encounters the embodiment of a principle, as well as the descendant of the ancient mother deities.
Photographer
Mafalda Prata (Marianische Antiphonen Prolog)
Stefan Hähnel (Marianische Antiphonen I − III)
Marianische Antiphonen
Prolog
3rd of July 2019
Portugal – Coimbra – Círculo de Iniciação Teatral da Academia de Coimbra (CITAC), Edifício da AAC
Marianische Antiphonen I
„Unter deinen Schutz und Schirm fliehen wir“
5th of August 2019
Portugal – Tomar – Convento de Cristo
To the exhibition M.A. I
Marianische Antiphonen II
Zwischenland
6th of August 2019
Portugal – Zwischenland – from Tomar to Fátima
Marianische Antiphonen III
Die Hirtenkinder von Portugal
7th of August 2019
Portugal – Aljustrel
Marianische Antiphonen III
Cova da Iria
7th of August 2019
Portugal – Fátima – Cova da Iria
On the Plot of the Marianischen Antiphonen
In the prologue of the Marianischen Antiphonen, Gabriel finds himself in the desert. He uses the last of his strength to save a little tree. Whilst doing so, he dies, buries himself and crosses an intermediate realm, in which Mary appears to him. She accompanies him to the other side, where he finds a mirror. In front of this, he plants the uprooted tree back into the earth.
The Marianischen Antiphonen I occurs in the Templar castle Convento de Cristo in Tomar. Before he enters the complex's interior, there is a ritual cleansing in several acts. Inside the castle, he unveils the kitten NEO, new-born life, which embodies the Kommenden Gott [coming God]. A representative of the institution throws him out, so he returns to the place of the cleansing ritual. There Gabriel writes four letters to Mary and the shepherd children. He leaves Tomar with these and, in the Marianischen Antiphonen II, crosses the wasteland between Tomar and Fátima.
In the first part of the Marianischen Antiphonen III, Gabriel visits Aljustrel, the birthplace of the shepherd children. There he gathers flowers and berries, which he carries with him to Fátima as a gift and greeting. Gabriel visits the main shrine in Cova da Iria during the second part. Here he confronts the institution church, represented by four stone and bronze popes with NEO, the newborn.
After another cleansing, he reaches, on his knees and holding NEO protectively in his arms, where the holm oak once stood, and Maria appeared to the children. He hands over his presents and the four letters.
WEG
August 2019 bis Ende 2021
On 29th October 2019, Gabriel received notification of the death of an immediate family member. This message tore him out of his then-prevailing existence. He decided to put the four dogs in his canine family up for adoption, in order to go back and assist his human family.
“My pilgrimage has taken the form of looking after the children these days,” he writes. “À stroke of fate, death, returned me to my point of departure in the Netherlands. While I’m here, I’m getting ready for the WEG [way/walk/method] to Rome.”
–
On 13 June 2020, the first exhibition by Edwin William Moes and Julian M. H. Schindele opened at the Bublitz Thesaurós in Berlin. For the first time, and possibly for the last, Gabriel visited one of his exhibitions. The performance is therefore called: Der Besuch [The visit].
To the exhibition Marianische Antiphonen I
Der Besuch
16th of June 2020
Deutschland – Berlin – Bublitz Thesaurós, Uhlandstraße 147
Photographer: Stefan Hähnel
WEG
Beginning of 2022 to today
The focus of the Marian Antiphonian I - III exhibition, which opened on the 7th of April, 2022, is a performance cycle that took place in and around the Fátima pilgrimage in Portugal from the 5th of August to the 7th of August 2019. This was recorded by the photographer Stefan Hähnel. The photographs of the plot, which, like all the performances of Gabriel, took place in public space without notice, are combined and presented in the exhibition with poetic texts, fragments and conceptual work.
Gabriel & Schindele understand a place like Fátima as already conceptually charged. "Narratives of the place are mobilized by a ritual performance and something past is revived and gained for the present." In their work, they interfere with such different time levels, biographies, histories and fiction, as well as Christian, Greek and other mythological character worlds.
To the exhibition Marianische Antiphonen I – III
Die stille Runde
8th of April 2022
Germany - Berlin - Bayerischer Platz and surrounding streets
Photographer: Stefan Hähnel
Die stille Runde
8th of April 2022
Deutschland – Berlin – Bayerischer Platz and surrounding streets
Camera: Philipp Wenning
M υ θ ο π ο ί η σ η V
GABRIEL
Marianische Antiphonen I – III
Culture appointment with the curator Eleonora Frolov
7th of May 2022
Photo by ArtInsights
SCHREINE (Asklepios und Hygieia)
Photographer: Stefan Hähnel
Die Niederländische Runde
13th – 18th of June 2022
From Laren to Rotterdam
Photographer: Stefan Hähnel