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040612: Secession - David Claerbout
Secession
David Claerbout - This sun always shines
03.05.2012 – 17.06.2012
Picture stories – media stories
By Milena Dimitrova
The first piece of art that catches the onlooker's attention in David Claerbout’s exhibition in Vienna’s Secession is Bordeaux Piece (2004).
The plot is based on Godard’s Le Meptis (1966) which reflects on narrative movies and their production requirements and marketing: while producing a film a “ménage a trois” evolves among the essential figures of a classic, narrative film: the leading actress, the film producer, and the scriptwriter.
Yet Claerbout’s reflections on the media film are mainly exemplified through media-immanent means. The work is shown as a loop; Bordeaux Piece is a 13-hour movie and shows the same story at different times of day. Each scene was shot umpteen times, at different times, and the scenes were then pieced together to form a recurrent narrative. The actual topics are light, darkness, and time as constitutive moments for the media film (as well as photography).
The aspiration of Claerbout’s oeuvre aims at defining or redefining the media. The approach in Bordeaux Piece is reminiscent of Monet, who painted his extensive picture series at different times of day and under different lighting conditions. This, too, was an obsessive attempt to work on a (new) definition of the medium “painting”, which was going through an identity crisis due to the recent development of photography.
The Algiers’ Sections of A Happy Moment (2008) shows a single scene shot from different angles. These simultaneous shots are then shown one after the other dragging out the moment. The Quiet Shore (2011) has the same structure and is shown in a large-scale projection on the back wall of the Secession: it shows pictures of the beach whose silvery black-and-white corresponds with the silver-grey reflection of the shiny flooring of the exhibition room – and referring to the colour of photographic paper during its development time.
Claerbout’ works are attractive because they also convey a certain atmosphere, invite to decode what one has seen, and even narrate stories – despite mainly focussing on the different possibilities offered by the media film.
Secession
1010 Vienna, Friedrichstrasse 12
Tel.: +43 1 587 53 07
Fax.: +43 1 587 53 07 – 34
email: office@secession.at
http://www.secession.at
Opening hours: Tue-Sat 10 – 18 hours, Sun 10-16 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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040612
Secession
1010 Wien, Friedrichstrasse 12
Tel: +43 1 587 53 07, Fax: +43 1 587 53 07-34
Email: office@secession.at
http://www.secession.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 14-18 h
Secession
1010 Wien, Friedrichstrasse 12
Tel: +43 1 587 53 07, Fax: +43 1 587 53 07-34
Email: office@secession.at
http://www.secession.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 14-18 h
