Published by Archive Books, 2020
Softcover, English, 192 pages
The Storyseller brings together a number of conversations from preparations for Gruber’s films between 2015 and 2019. The artist speaks with professionals, as well as to people whose life experiences have inspired other characters; these people mostly operate behind the scenes, or on the peripheries of culture, but nevertheless have significant political and social impacts on their communities, even if they are often unaware of them.
Edited by Paolo Caffoni and published by Archive Books, this document is dedicated to the encounters that have shaped Gruber’s scripts and directorial choices.
The Storyseller presents conversations with Jacqueline Winkler (the only female taxidermist at Berlin’s Natural History Museum); Kim Lee (a popular drag queen from Warsaw); Guillaume Bijl (a celebrated visual artist); Uta Schorlemmer (high school teacher and daughter of civil rights activist in the GDR); Uta Neidhardt (curator at the Alte Gemäldegalerie in Dresden); and Michal Tomaszewski (the frontman of Banda Internationale, a group that protested against Pegida with loud music from all over the world). The collection explores ethics and unexpected political positions from a variety of backgrounds and places—from Hanoi to Jerusalem, and from Warsaw to Dresden, via Antwerp and Berlin.