Paul Haas
Die Schwarze Masse, 2025
Video, colour, stereo, 4K
12 min
The prophet: Morten Rose
With Khashayar Zandyavari, Sara Elizabeth Egede Andersson, Thorbjørn Pihl, Loqman Ahmed, Oliver Engelmand, Sidsel Buch
Camera: John Hussain Flindt
Sound: Khashayar Zandyavari
Assistence: Line Lyhne
Colour correction: Botond Nagy
Sound mix: Leon Goltermann
Courtesy the artist
Paul Haas (b. 1992, Eilenburg, Germany) graduated from the Städelschule. His practice centres primarily on film, but also includes photography and installation. At the thematic core of his work lies a critical examination of origin and the construction of political identity. A particular focus in his recent projects has been on life in rural regions of Germany, drawing on autobiographical experiences from his youth in Northern Saxony.
Haas’s films engage with the ideologically charged visual language of recent German history. They trace its fractures and dangerous lines of continuity, revealing possible links between past and present. His references include films from the GDR, as well as a critical engagement with folkloric and nationalist nature symbols—such as the eagle or the stag—and with militarised ideals of masculinity. What interests Haas is the extent to which these images and ideals persist into the present day.
For And This is Us 2025, Haas has created a film developed during his current residency in Copenhagen. The film opens with a close-up that transitions into a long tracking shot, gradually revealing the setting. On a sunny day, a man stands in a public square with a portable speaker and microphone. The figure begins to deliver a speech, declaiming to the open air, indifferent to the people strolling across Kongens Nytorv—a central, bustling square in the Danish capital. The tone and diction of his speech evoke the presence of a prophet. He warns that he comes from the future, that it is bleak, conjuring images of war, destruction, and death—a war believed to be over, yet destined to return.
Interwoven throughout the film are brief vignettes of interpersonal conversations. But the prophet’s speech remains the central thread. Though his appearance is unremarkable, he stands apart from the passers-by, who continue unbothered, unaware. Played by Danish actor Morten Rose, the prophet remains an ambivalent figure. His speech teeters between anti-war rhetoric and a call to arms—as if it were a message foretelling the fateful repetition of history.
Haas films the protagonist from a great distance using a telephoto lens, observing him in the vast openness of the square—unnoticed, unheard. This stylistic choice, borrowed from wildlife documentary filmmaking, allows Haas to describe action from afar, reinforcing the sense of quiet estrangement.
In Haas’s work—this piece being no exception—there is often a diffuse atmosphere of constant tension. He achieves this ambivalence through the blending of documentary and fictional elements. Professional actors are deliberately cast alongside non-actors, with performances shifting between improvisation and scripted delivery.
Paul Haas (b. 1992, Eilenburg, DE) studied Fine Arts in the class of Prof. Gerard Byrne at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main (DE), graduating in 2024 as a master student. Previously, he studied Media Art at the Bauhaus University Weimar (DE). In his film and video works, Haas uses both documentary and fictional techniques.
His works have been shown in group exhibitions at the Museum of Odesa Modern Art, Odesa (UA), ACUD, Berlin (DE), and the Goethe-Institut Dublin (IE). He has had solo exhibitions at the Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden (DE) in 2020, the Ausstellungshalle 1A, Frankfurt am Main (DE) in 2023, and the 1822-Forum of the Frankfurter Sparkasse, Frankfurt am Main (DE) in 2024. In 2023, he won the Städelschule Rundgang Film Award, and in 2025, he will be an Artist in Residence at Art Hub Copenhagen (DK). Since 2025, he has been part of the HAP studio program at basis e.V. in Frankfurt am Main (DE).
