CHEAP: Cheap People Are Other People | Screening

As part of Spätschicht x Volksbühne, Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art presents the first part of the film Cheap People Are Other People 1-5 (2020) by Berlin art collective CHEAP in the Gropius Bau cinema.

Spätschicht - Live-Programm am Gropius Bau is a monthly, free series of events with an interdisciplinary program ranging from talks, book presentations and film screenings to concerts and DJ sets. In addition to the screening, this evening you can enjoy concerts by Cortisa Star and Dylan Kerr, a DJ set by Bobby Beethoven and the book launch of Über gefährliches Terrain by Vaginal Davis.

Since moving to Berlin 20 years ago, artist, author and performer Vaginal Davis has been part of the art collective CHEAP. In their work, the group of artists deals with questions of uniqueness and authenticity. Their joint, five-part film Cheap People Are Other People (2020) attempts to rethink the relationships between model and copy, past and present, one body and the next through samples and repetitions. From July, a chapter of the film will be shown monthly in the Gropius Bau cinema, each time combined with a film from the Arsenal archive, which Miss Davis is very familiar with: from 2007 to 2018, she presented finds from this archive in her event series Rising Stars, Falling Stars.

The art collective CHEAP was founded in Berlin in 2001. Their work includes performances, videos, festivals, concerts, installations and radio broadcasts. In each project, their practice combines theory and pleasure, politics and scurrility, aesthetics and sex.

Vaginal Davis is a performer, writer and creator of iconic zines, visual artist and experimental filmmaker. As a self-proclaimed Blacktress and drag terrorist, gossip columnist, influential public figure and teacher, she is an important voice of queer, Black counterculture.

At the event, photos and video recordings may be made in which you could be recognized. By attending, you consent to these recordings being used to communicate the event or exhibition.