Salters Cottages

Gary Schneider / Biliana Voutchkova

A male person holds a narrow object up to his forehead with one hand and looks intently beneath it.

Gary Schneider, Peter Hujar in Salters Cottages, film still, 1981 © Gary Schneider

Gropius Bau and MaerzMusik present Gary Schneider’s Salters Cottages (1981) as part of Spätschicht x C/O Berlin. The film revolves around the relationship between seeing and being seen. Composer and violinist Biliana Voutchkova reacts to the movie by expanding it with musical means, going beyond conventional playing techniques.

Spätschicht – Live Programme at Gropius Bau is a monthly series of free events with an interdisciplinary programme ranging from talks, book discussions and film screenings to concerts and DJ sets. In addition to the screening and the performance, you can experience a reading by Andrew Durbin and a workshop by Queer Analog Darkroom.

Salters Cottages is a 1981 short movie made by artist and photographer Gary Schneider in a holiday location on the coast of Long Island, New York. In its fragmentary narrative, Peter Hujar, John Erdman, Suzanne Joelson and Gary Stephan play voyeurs and exhibitionists who meet in a close-knit residential area. The 16-minute-long film is a homage to Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour (1950), which takes the relationship between two prison inmates and a warden as a starting point to explore themes of intimacy, passion, voyeurism and violence.

Biliana Voutchkova responds to Salters Cottages with sonic and performative interventions. Using violin, voice, and objects, she approaches the film’s mood and aesthetic intuitively. In resonance with the visual and narrative atmospheres of the film, the musician’s interventions focus on perception and intimacy and form part of her on-going exploration of blurriness as a concept.

Content note: The film depicts nudity and sexual acts.

This event is a collaboration between Gropius Bau and MaerzMusik 2026 / Berliner Festspiele and takes place as part of Spätschicht x C/O Berlin. Spätschicht C/O Berlin is an edition of Spätschicht – Live-Programm am Gropius Bau, co-curated with Boaz Levin, programme director and curator at C/O Berlin.

During the event, photographs and video recordings may be made in which you may be recognisable. By attending, you consent to these recordings being used to communicate the event or exhibition.