Patrick Staff: The Prince of Homburg review – escape to dreamland

Dundee Contemporary Arts
Inspired by a 19th-century play, Staff examines ideas of freedom, dissidence and the queer body through sculpture, installation and film

If Trump, Brexit and Boris Johnson - to name a few culprits - leave you feeling extremely tired, you're not alone. London and LA-based artist Patrick Staff's new exhibition at Dundee Contemporary Arts deals with the widespread condition of exhaustion.

Staff's practice explores ideas of discipline, dissidence, labour and the queer body. This show includes film, sculpture, installation and prints, built around German writer Heinrich von Kleist's play The Prince of Homburg, from which the show takes its title. Written in 1810 but set in 1675, Kleist's drama opens with a sleepwalking prince who, overcome with the burdens of war, half dreams and half lives a narrative of victory and love. Confused about what is real and what is not, the prince overrides his superior's commands on the battlefield and, despite winning the battle, is sentenced to die.