CHEAP: Cheap People Are Other People | Kapitel 3–5

In the organizer's words:

Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art presents the last three chapters of the film Cheap People Are Other People(2020) by the Berlin art collective CHEAP in the Gropius Bau cinema.

The artist, author and performer Vaginal Davis has been part of the art collective CHEAP since she moved to Berlin 20 years ago. In their work, the group of artists deals with questions of uniqueness and authenticity. Their film Cheap People Are Other People(2020) uses samples and repetition to rethink the relationships between model and copy, past and present, one body and the next.

Since July, one chapter of the filmCheap People Are Other Peoplehas been shown each month in the Gropius Bau cinema. After a short introduction by Marc Siegel, the last three chapters will be shown this evening. Miss Davis herself is also very familiar with the Arsenal archive: 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.

Marc Siegel is Professor of Film Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His research and publications focus on experimental film and queer studies. He is the editor of Jack Smith: What's Underground About Marshmallows? and other texts which will be published by Alexander Verlag in November this year. Marc Siegel is a member of the Association of Palestinian and Jewish Academics and the Berlin art collective CHEAP.