Running away is easy, it’s the leaving that’s hard – vom Kindsein und Loslassen

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Pierre Yves Delannoy, Mauricio Hölzemann, Running Away, 2025 Copyright: Die Künstler

Mauricio Hölzemann & Pierre-Yves Delannoy „Running away is easy, it’s the leaving that’s hard“, Videostill, 2025. Foto: Die Künstler

Programme & Events

Wednesday

Jul 09, 2025

opening

6 pm

Mauricio Hölzemann & Pierre-Yves Delannoy „Running away is easy, it’s the leaving that’s hard“, 2025, video, 60 min., HD, 16:9, colour, stereo

In their new video work "Running away is easy, it’s the leaving that’s hard" (2025), Mauricio Hölzemann and Pierre-Yves Delannoy address the theme of leaving rural hometowns behind. The two artists are a couple and, in addition to their individual practices, also collaborate artistically. In their joint projects, they explore questions of belonging and identity, drawing on their own experiences with each other and with others. Their works approach these themes directly and humorously, sometimes authentically, sometimes fictionally. Immediate emotions and spontaneous statements are commented on, relativised or ironically broken in the next moment by a voice-over or in the following shot. For "Running away is easy, it’s the leaving that’s hard", Mauricio Hölzemann and Pierre-Yves Delannoy accompanied each other to their respective hometowns – Filderstadt in Baden-Württemberg and Châlons-en-Champagne in France. What experiences and hopes motivate queer people to leave their hometowns? What traces have the farewells left behind, and how have the places changed from memory? What significance does the flight from the countryside to the city have when both look back on their biographies since then? The two artists visit the ‘places of non-farewell’ – typical places for youth years in villages and small towns – football pitches, village wells, dirt roads and country lanes. In the recordings of seemingly endless summer days, the air shimmers and the empty, uneventful places fill with old and new memories, unfulfilled expectations and possible reappropriations of almost forgotten attributions, hurts and hopes. They return to leave again – this time not in haste, but with a conscious farewell. Running away is easy. It is saying goodbye that is difficult.

About Pierre-Yves Delannoy & Mauricio Hölzemann ↓

Mauricio Hölzemann & Pierre-Yves Delannoy live and work as a couple and artist duo in Munich. Their performative media works have been shown at the Goethe-Institut Paris, space n.n. in Munich, the AkademieGalerie Munich and the Haus der Kunst, among others. While Pierre-Yves Delannoy pursues an approach based on architecture and media art, Mauricio Hölzemann contributes his experience in acting, performance and video art. Together they studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in the class of Prof. Julian Rosefeldt.

Pierre-Yves Delannoy ↓

Pierre-Yves Delannoy (born 1995 in Châlons-sur-Marne, now Châlons-en Champagne) collects, searches, sows and invites. His practice moves between video and performance, body and city, textiles and architecture. His poetic and humorous works emerge from collections of everyday objects and phenomena in a process of reuse, repurposing and repair. He deals with collective memory, forgotten practices and intimate narratives. His approach is gentle, friendly and accessible. He studied architecture, fine arts and performance at TUM in Munich, ENSAPC in France, KASK in Belgium and as an intern at CENTEX in Chile. In 2019, he completed his architecture studies at the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Versailles. In 2025, he completed his art studies as a master student in Julian Rosefeldt's class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.

Mauricio Hölzemann ↓

Mauricio Hölzemann (born in Filderstadt in 1994) lives in Munich. He first studied puppetry at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts and then acting at the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hanover. From 2018 to 2021, he was a permanent member of the ensemble at the Munich Volkstheater. He then turned to the visual arts and studied media art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in the class of Prof. Julian Rosefeldt. In his artistic practice, he works primarily with film and video. In the music theatre production Ok Tannhäuser! at the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Landestheater Esslingen, he was a performer, video artist and part of the directing team. He also works in theatre as a theatre educator and director.