Christine König Galerie curated by Pierre Bismuth
„A BAS LENINE, OU LA VIERGE A L’ECURIE“

Born in Paris in 1963, lives and works in Brussels in 2005 he was awarded the oscar in the category “Best original screenplay” for the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. his activities as an artist comprise collage, drawing, installation, video, and screenplay. his works deal with the phenomena and products of mass culture and question the established codes of perception. his recent exhibitions include: Seconde main (2010) at Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Oggetti che avrebbero dovuto cambiare la tua vita (2009) at Base/Progetti per l’arte in Florence, Following the Right Hand of…(2009) at team Gallery in new York, Mille e Tre (2009) at louvre in Paris, Variety Evening (2009) at new Museum in new York, Ruled by Extravagant 170 Expectations (2008) at christine König Galerie in Vienna, The All-Seeing Eye (with Michel Gondry) (2008) at BFi southbank Gallery in london, Pierre Bismuth (2008) at Queensland art Gallery in south Brisbane, as well as No Leftovers (2008) at Kunsthalle Bern.

Taking its title from Luis Buñuel, the exhibition approaches the question of cinema from a critical and sometimes ironic perspective. Free of any fascination with the mass audience, it seeks to establish less evident relations between art and film, therefore limiting the number of works using moving image while including sculpture, photographs, performance et al. The chosen works, which are structured around two main axes - deconstruction of the cinematographic apparatus on the one hand (Jacques André, Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová, Andreas Reiter Raabe, Cory Arcangel) and appropriation on the other hand (Guillaume Paris, Assaf Gruber, Thomas Stimm & Leopold Redl, Danai Anesiadou) - attempt to absorb cinema into forms and questions related to the visual arts. The sizeable category of artists who make films is thus deliberately ignored. Moreover, none of the artists chosen here seems to be exclusively or even particulary interested in the film medium. Thus, their relation to film that is suggested in this presentation is not automatically traceable in their other works. In some cases, even, that relation simply did not exist before it was deliberately adduced by placing the works in the context of this exhibition.

 

Pierre Bismuth, 2010