A group exhibition exploring the relationship between the language of film and contemporary art. The first in a five-part ten month series of new commissions, exhibitions and events Portuguese Waves celebrating the vibrant Portuguese contemporary art culture.
Curated by Iliyana Nedkova and Filipa Oliveira
14 November 2009 – 13 January 2010
Open Monday to Saturday, 10am – 6pm or late on performance evenings.
Threshold artspace, Perth Concert Hall,
Mill Street, Perth PH1 5HZ, Scotland
Cinematic presents artists’ video and sound works that explore the strong relationship between the language of film and contemporary art. The exhibition is conceived in response to the location of the Threshold artspace where all performing arts come together. The intimacy between cinema and artists’ moving image is present in all of the selected works thus immediately transporting us to the land of cinema – be it through memory association, or by appropriation yet without the ubiquitous black box or dimmed lights. The exhibition features new commissions showing at the different ‘project rooms’ of the artspace.
New commissions include two 22-channel video works for the Threshold Wave:
José Maçãs de Carvalho, To President (Drinking Version), 2005-07
By incessantly repeating found Hollywood footage starring Marylin Monroe, re-worked with new superimposed subtitles, the artist urges us to reflect on the connection between film and politics, between politics and the construction of the image.
Adriana Molder, Sequence, 2006
Throwing down photographs of Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper as if they were playing cards, the artist creates a kind of war of the sexes, or a game of attraction between two irresistible characters. The clue is in the final shot: an iconic publicity photograph from the film Morocco (1930) (dir. Josef von Sternberg).
Showing elsewhere in the Threshold artspace:
Sara & André, Sara & André Arrive in Porto, 2007, 11 min loop
Questioning the notion of authorship, this duo often investigate, with tongue-in-cheek, the new breed of celebrity artists treated as minor movie stars. Here the artists arrive at an airport and are greeted by a gang of ‘phony’ paparazzi who follow them until they reach… the subway.
Showing in the evenings only (4pm-6pm or until late on performance nights) at Threshold Stage as large-scale wall projection.
António Olaio, Pictures are not movies, 2005, 4 min 30 sec loop
Highlighting the ambiguity in the word ‘pictures’, the artist creates a cross between a music videoclip and a ‘spindle viewer’ or a phenakistoscope as one of the earliest animation devices known. Referencing both the history of fine art and cinema, Olaio foregrounds the fundamental role of music and text in contemporary moving image.
Showing at all times at Threshold Stage Screen as well as at www.youtube.com/Thresholdartspace
João Pombeiro, Schizo, 2002, 2 min 28 sec, loop
Manipulating a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959), the artist reflects on the randomness and apparent schizophrenia of our contemporary society. Just by erasing the plane that is pursuing Cary Grant from the scene, the artist makes the actor appear to run and duck away for no reason.
Luísa Cunha, The Hat, 1997
This audio installation tells a short and odd story about a man with a hat. While keeping us in suspense for the story to unfold, the artist reminds us of crime movies where the hat is Hitchcock’s Macguffin: a plot element that catches our attention and drives the fiction along.
Showing on loan from the DGArtes Collection, Ministry of Culture, Portugal.
Also showing at the Threshold artspace micro cinema, the first of a four-part programme of artists’ films and videos from the prestigious corporate collection of PJML Foundation, Lisbon showing for the first time in the UK.
Telepathic Agriculture, António Olaio, 2005, 5 min
My Centrifugal Body Force 2 / O meu corpo centrífugo 2, Cristina Mateus, 2003, 5 min
The Experience of a Place II / A experiência do lugar II, Helena Almeida, 2004, 13 min
Pose, Make-up, Pose I / Pose, maquillage, pose I, João Tabarra, 2004, 3 min
Timelines / Linha do tempo, Jorge Molder, 2000, 5 min
Never Tell a Secret, José Maçãs de Carvalho, 2004, 3 min
Lacan’s Assumption, Julião Sarmento, 2003, 12 min
Showing as a bonus short each night preceding the arthouse, independent and world film features programmed by Perth Film Society selected Thursdays. All shorts and films start at 7.45pm. Admission to shorts free with a valid ticket for a feature film. More at www.horsecross.co.uk
Produced by the artists, curators and Horsecross Arts for Threshold artspace in partnership with 55degrees, Glasgow, Perth Film Society, PJML Foundation, Lisbon and DGArtes Collection, Portugal
Supported by the Calouste Gulbenkain Foundation, Instituto Camões Portugal of Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Portuguese Arts Council Acordo Tripartido Fund.
