The End

Who is the world-famous artist Albert Oehlen, and why does he change bodies? A punk-rooted, Surrealism-infused brew of documentary and fiction, the magical with the banal, the outrageous with the subdued, and the sublime with the crass. Provocative and fun!

Several years ago, Albert Oehlen, a major star in the world of contemporary art, started to send celebrated German actor Ben Becker to public appearances in his stead – unannounced. Consequently, if you knew neither Oehlen nor Becker, the person in front of you would indeed be Albert Oehlen. Becker was Oehlen in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2021 non-fiction musing Der Maler, while in Oehlen’s solo debut Bad Painter (2025), the late Udo Kier played a painter called Albert Oehlen. And now, with The End, Oehlen pushes the envelope even further by featuring more than one Albert Oehlen, played by more actors still.

Does the artist vanish in this series of portraits – or does his magnitude simply constitute an adequate reflection? Whatever the answer, Oehlen’s punk-rooted, Surrealism-infused attitude to filmmaking, the way he mixes documentary and fiction, the magical with the banal, the outrageous with the subdued, the sublime with the crass, classical story-telling with experimental sounds and bewildering images, is unlike anything in cinema these days – provocative and fun at the same time.

– Olaf Möller

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