Film series on the occasion of the exhibition Sigmar Polke’s Photographic Infamies (13 September - 22 December 2019) at Le BAL
Whether pictorial or photographic, Sigmar Polke's work is nourished by all kinds of images, which he draws from newspapers, magazines and advertisements, revisiting various genres of representation (portrait, landscape, still life, etc.) and blurring the distinction between abstraction and figuration. With an iconoclastic humour, the German artist undermines hierarchies and pictorial and photographic processes to allow flaws to occur in the image and to enable what Bernard Marcadé, co-curator of the exhibition, calls a "mutation of forms and of the gaze".
Sigmar Polke photographs everything, without any hierarchisation or apparent link between images. Family and travel photos, souvenirs, notes for his future paintings might give rise to experimentation with the various stages of photography, from the shot (exposure time, superimposition of images) to the darkroom (from development to printing, using chemicals to break down the image, alternative development times, positive/negative inversion, etc.). This play with the medium's potential for the application and exploration of various forms and techniques is the focus of this screening.
Echoing Sigmar Polke's window pattern (a series presented at the Venice Biennale in 1986), Dore O.'s film Kaskara, made in Germany at the same time, also plays with a mise en abyme of the frame. Other images coexist in Polke's photographic work: shots of mushrooms or urban signage, or a gallery of portraits depicting the same image using distinct photochemical development processes; visual forms and repetitions that can also be found in the filmic experiments of Charlotte Pryce, Christian Hossner and David Rimmer.
Polke also explores the photographic material in depth by striving to probe the very frame of the image. This desire to show the smallest visual unity of an image and its materiality also inspires, in a variety of ways, experimental filmmakers such as Paolo Gioli, who works on the material of the film medium, Sandy Ding, who builds his piece on the inversion of positive and negative, Sami Van Ingen, who uses colour photocopy as a visual experience, and the Cellule d'Intervention Metamkine, who break film down using chemical substances.
DEEP SIX
by Sami VAN INGEN 2007 / 35mm / color / sound / 7' 00 |
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THE RADIO WAVE OF BLOOD BENEATH THE DIRT ICE AND FLOWERS
by Sandy DING 2006 / 35mm / b&w / silent / 8' 00 |
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QUANDO I CORPI SI TOCCANO
When Bodies Touch by Paolo GIOLI 2012 / DCP / b&w / silent / 3' 43 |
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DISCOVERIES ON THE FOREST FLOOR
by Charlotte PRYCE 2006 / 16mm / color / silent / 4' 00 |
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VARIATIONS ON A CELLOPHANE WRAPPER
by David RIMMER 1970 / 16mm / color / sound / 8' 00 |
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NIPKOW TV
by Christian HOSSNER 1998 / 16mm / color / sound / 6' 45 |
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ACIDFILMDA
by METAMKINE 1992 / 16mm / color / sound / 5' 25 |
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KASKARA
by Dore O. 1974 / DCP / color / sound / 20' 00 |
address |
Cinéma des Cinéastes 7 avenue de Clichy 75017 Paris France |
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metro | Place de Clichy (lines, 2, 13) |
tel | +33 (0)1 53 42 40 20 |
lightcone@lightcone.org | |
related links |
Exhibition Sigmar Polke’s Photographic Infamies
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rates |
full rate: 9.50 € reduced rate: 7.50 € screening & exhibition at LE BAL: 11.50 € |