{"data":{"id":"20748","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":20748,"topgoose_id":14329,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":20748,"title":"Hans und Grete","display_artist_text":"Sue de Beer","display_date":"2002","accession_number":"2004.47","dimensions":"Dimensions variable","medium":"Two-channel video installation, color, sound, 39 min. with rug, stuffed animals, guitar, amplifiers, and framed screens","department":"collection","classification":"Installations","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eSue de Beer, \u003cem\u003eHans und Grete\u003c/em\u003e, 2002. Two-channel video installation, color, sound, 39 min. with rug, stuffed animals, guitar, amplifiers, and framed screens, dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee 2004.47. © 2002 Sue DeBeer\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eIn her two-channel video installation, \u003ci\u003eHans und Grete\u003c/i\u003e, Sue de Beer creates a layered narrative that focuses on two teenage couples—one preppie, one goth—who appear in classroom scenes that indirectly reference the cult horror films, \u003ci\u003eHalloween\u003c/i\u003e (1978) and \u003ci\u003eA Nightmare on Elm Street \u003c/i\u003e(1984). As its pop culture-obsessed characters begin to grasp the events of the bloody 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, de Beer incorporates the near-mythological figures of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, a group of violent revolutionaries who terrorized Germany in the early 1970s, and whose young leaders were known as “Hans” and “Grete.” The teens in the work occupy themselves with sex and games and aspire to be rock stars, yet they can only cope with their experience of death through extreme fantasies of revenge. The work’s installation extends de Beer’s exploration of horror films as a deeply naïve yet ominous aspect of escapist youth culture. The video is projected on abutting screens, situated in an environment comprising enormous stuffed animal chairs arranged on plush, adolescent bedroom-like carpet.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Teen with shaggy hair lying on a bed and reading a magazine in a punk-styled room.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:19:40.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:00:59.783-05:00","images":[{"id":105556,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/20748/2004_47_still_vw2.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"9228","type":"artist"}]}}}}