Thursday November 13, 7.30pm
Paris, 1980s: Deconstructed Narratives and Late Formalisms
16mm films by Jean-Pierre Bertrand, David Wharry, Unglee, Jakobois, and Téo Hernandez
curated by Enrico Camporesi
admission $7 – curator in attendance
Still from A Touch of Venus – General Picture. Episode 11 (David Wharry, 1980)
Microscope is very pleased to welcome back Paris-based curator and researcher Enrico Camporesi for a second survey of 16mm films selected from the Light Cone collection (Paris). The evening includes works by Jean-Pierre Bertrand, David Wharry, Unglee, Jakobois, and Téo Hernandez that have rarely, if ever, screened in the US.
Program notes by Enrico Camporesi follow:
This program gathers five films from the early 1980s, and wishes to present an overview of a diverse variety of artistic practices of the time. Ideally the works presented in the program revolve around two main axes: narrative and form. At first the importance of ‘structural’ filmmaking can still be witnessed. The inquiry into the specific properties of film is developed both in an unconscious, indirect way (as in The Diamon’d by conceptual artist Jean-Pierre Bertrand) or else dismantled with sense of humor (as in the work of Jakobois). Narrative, in its deconstructed configuration, is at the core of the works by Unglee and David Wharry, the two of them openly playing with genre codes and tropes (science-fiction and mystery). L’Eau de la Seine by Mexican born filmmaker Téo Hernandez closes the program with the portrait of one of Paris’ most iconic elements, the Seine, which rapidly turns into an almost-entire abstract imagery. In these juxtaposition of heterogenous individual practices, mutual strategies and concerns emerge, thus enabling to see what could be defined one of the most challenging moments in experimental and artist’s film in France. – EC
Program:
The Diamon’d (Jean-Pierre Bertrand, 1981)
16 mm / col. / sil. / 1:30 min
A Touch of Venus – General Picture. Episode 11 (David Wharry, 1980)
16 mm / col. / mag. sound / 8 min
Radio-Serpent (Unglee, 1980)
16 mm / col. / op. sound / 12 min
Déjà ? Vu (Jakobois, 1980)
16 mm / col. / sound on CD / 10:30 min
L’Eau de la Seine (Téo Hernandez, 1982-1983)
16 mm (or. Super 8) / col. / sil. / 18 min
Total running time: 50′
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Enrico Camporesi is an Italian writer and curator based in Paris. He is a research fellow at Centre Pompidou and he is currently writing a Ph. D dissertation on matters of restoration and museology of experimental and artist’s film. He recently curated (with Jonathan Pouthier) the program ‘Duchamp du film’ at Centre Pompidou, and he edited Jean-Michel Bouhours on Paolo Gioli (Paris: Light Cone Editions, 2014).
Light Cone is a non-profit making organization with the aim of promoting, distributing and preserving experimental cinema. Its remit covers the different historical forms, as well as contemporary research, both in France and abroad. Its collection is by virtue of its size and comprehensiveness one of the most important and valuable collections of experimental film in Europe. Light Cone distributes nearly 3700 works – Super-8, 35mm and above all 16mm films, works of expanded cinema (multi-screen projection) as well as analogue and digital videos. More than 500 international artists and filmmakers made these films from 1905 onwards to the present day.
Microscope Gallery gratefully acknowledges the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation as the Official Sponsor of our Event Series.
Still from Déjà ? Vu (Jakobois, 1980)
