NUMBER FOURTEEN, HOME

Nummer veertien, homeprovokes the historical perpetuation of metaphorical monuments, rituals and commemorative events through three stories of journeys: the death of Frédéric Chopin in Paris and his sister’s quest to bring the composer’s heart back to his native Poland for burial; the voyages of Alexander the Great; and van der Werve’s personal biography. Van der Werve traces, in reverse, the route of Chopin’s heart in a three-week, thousand-mile über triathlon of biking, running, and swimming. The artist spent a year composing the score for the film, which is built on the structure of a classic Requiem. The generic and semiotic aspects of this music, especially its associations with chorale and dirge, operate allegorically alongside van der Werve’s epic triathlon and his commitment to the legacy of the Classics; not just Alexander but Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.