“Film Implosion” at Medrar for Contemporary Art
Egypt
February 8, 2018
Exhibition opening
At 7:00 pm
February 8, 2018 till March 15, 2018
Exhibition hours - Everyday except Fridays
From 3:00 pm to 9:00 pm
February 9, 2018
Presentation of films by Robert Beavers & Gregory Markopoulos
At 7:00 pm
February 10, 2018
Conversation with the artist Urs Breitenstein and screening his collection of works by Werner von Mutzenbecher & André Lehmann
At 7:00 pm
March 15, 2018
Closing event with special screening of Geschichte der Nacht, (1978) with the presence of it’s director Clemens Klopfenstein
At 7:00 pm
Film Implosion! is an exhibition dedicated to Swiss experimental cinema. It sheds light on a less known aspect of the country’s art history by presenting a panorama of genres and practices within the mediums of film and video from the 1960ʼs until today. Artists challenge the traditional codes of cinema through formal interventions directly on the celluloid, unconventional documentaries, political, feminist, animated, and fiction films.
Film Implosion! outlines the multiple discourses and viewpoints that surface from these filmic and para-filmic productions by offering two types of readings that echo one another. It presents an experience of the unique atmosphere of expanded cinema’s festive events in the 1960’s – a time when films were collectively projected during concerts or performances, far from the codes of classical “movie screening.”
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pro Helvetia Cairo, Medrar for Contemporary Art presents a version of the exhibition with a collection of twenty one rarely presented films, curated by François Bovier and Adeena Mey, which highlights comparable ways of addressing the primary structures of film in its rough form, by artists and filmmakers alike. It recalls the fundamentals of video art language that we know today, traced back to earlier expressive forms against the conventions of classical cinema. Ranging from abstract animation to collage practices and documentary mode, the featured works share a desire to deconstruct the conventions of filmic language and reinvent representation.
The exhibition was initially curated by François Bovier and Balthazar Lovay, which was first shown at Fri Art Kunsthalle (Fribourg, Switzerland) 2015 – 2016.
André Lehmann, Bernhard Luginbühl, Clemens Klopfenstein, Daniel Spoerri, Dieter Meier, Ecart (John Armleder, Patrick Lucchini, Claude Rychner), Eva & Guido Haas, George Brecht, Hannes Schupbach, Hans Helmut Klaus (HHK) Schoenherr, Hans-Jakob Siber, Henri Chopin, Isa Hesse-Rabinovitch, Jean-Luc Godard, Peter Stämpfli, René Bauermeister, Rolf Winnewisser, Tjerk Wicky, Tony Morgan, Urs Breitenstein, Véronique Goël, Werner von Mutzenbecher.
