WAGNER WELTWEIT- INSTALLATION

What was lay­ered on stage — oper­at­ic myth, war, social media, pro­pa­gan­da and real-time music — becomes a space in the muse­um. Across eleven sta­tions, sound, mov­ing image, voic­es, pro­jec­tions and new­ly com­posed music sur­round the vis­i­tor, who moves through the mate­r­i­al with­out a fixed dis­tance and with­out a sin­gle per­spec­tive from which every­thing resolves. The space can be entered, crossed, left and entered again, and every path through it pro­duces a dif­fer­ent ver­sion of the work.

Bayreuth is not a neu­tral host for this. Here the work meets Wag­n­er in the place where his cul­tur­al lega­cy is still being pro­duced, pre­served and con­test­ed, and where fas­ci­na­tion, inher­i­tance, appro­pri­a­tion, resis­tance and polit­i­cal mean­ing refuse to sep­a­rate. What the instal­la­tion keeps open is the ques­tion of how polit­i­cal feel­ings are pro­duced, dis­trib­uted, repeat­ed and aes­thet­i­cal­ly sta­bilised — and what part sto­ry­telling plays in bind­ing emo­tion to ide­ol­o­gy, and ide­ol­o­gy to vio­lence.

Wag­n­er Res­o­nance is on view at the Richard Wag­n­er Muse­um, Bayreuth, until 4 Octo­ber 2026.