Hartmut Bitomsky
Gustav Deutsc
Isabell Heimerdinger
Constanze Ruhm
Krassimir Terziev
Nadim Vardag
Klaus Wyborny
Stephen Zepke
Antje Ehmann
Harun Farocki
Antje Ehmann
Harun Farocki
The show is to be perceived as a cinematographic laboratory. Film is brought into the exhibition space without simulating a situation of cinema. It is a film exhibition that does not show complete films, but elucidates film language by means of photographic series, slide se-quences, and sequential montages. Works by Hartmut Bitomsky, Gustav Deutsch, Isabell Heimerdinger, Constanze Ruhm, Krassimir Terziev, Nadim Vardag, Klaus Wyborny, Stephen Zepke as well as Antje Ehmann and Harun Farocki.
Group show
curated by Antje Ehmann and Harun Farocki
With works by Hartmut Bitomsky, Gustav Deutsch, Isabell Heimerdinger, Constanze Ruhm,
Krassimir Terziev, Nadim Vardag, Klaus Wyborny, Stephen Zepke as well as Antje
Ehmann and Harun Farocki.
Film pictures in exhibition spaces have longest been taken for granted. Reason
enough to more closely examine the origin of these pictures. What is seen in cinema
and in which way? How does the medium of film function and what rules does it
follow? The author and filmmaker Harun Farocki and the film academic and artist
Antje Ehmann have been invited by the Generali Foundation to use the exhibition
space for cinema and film analysis.
Cinema like never before is to be perceived as a cinematographic laboratory. Film is
brought into the exhibition space without simulating a situation of cinema. Similar
to an editing room, takes are weighed and evaluated, cutting frequencies
established, and principles of structure and composition analyzed. Archetypes and
recurring patterns in film history are addressed and cinema’s technological
determinants and conditions of perception are investigated. The exhibition brings
together analytical and artistic practices that further contemplate cinema in the
art space and contribute to a different understanding of film.
As opposed to other film exhibitions, it is not the predominant issue here to
cele-brate the myth of cinema.
Cinema like never before is a film exhibition that does not show complete films, but
elucidates film language by means of photographic series, slide se-quences, and
sequential montages. With photographs, stills and moving images, the exhibition
intends to provide a chance to study films as it is otherwise done in cutting rooms
and seminars, but always with a great deal of explanation. In contrast, the idea
here is to detach analyses of images from a discursive framework, instead allowing
them to unfold by virtue of conceptual sequences of images.
Numerous contributions of the artists, filmmakers and authors were specially
developed for the exhibition. Among them an installation by Hartmut Bitomsky, one of
Germany’s most prominent documentary filmmakers, which presents death as an axiom of
cinema.
Accompanying Publication
Edited by Antje Ehmann and Harun Farocki, published by Sabine Breitwieser for
Generali Foundation, Vienna. Verlag Buchhandlung Walther Konig, Koln,
German/English.
Artistic and Managing Director: Sabine Breitwieser
Press Office
Carmen Buchacher
found.presse@generali.at
Generali Foundation
Wiedner Hauptstrasse 15 - Vienna