Chris Marker
Chris Marker: A Grin Without a Cat
31.10.14 – 11.01.15
31.10.14 – 11.01.15
The exhibition Chris Marker: A Grin Without a Cat opens on 31 October 2014 at 19:00. The films of the visionary French filmmaker Chris Marker (1921-2012) weave together realism and science fiction, the poetic and the political. Marker was a pioneering figure within the so-called essay film – a hybrid of documentary and personal reflections – which today is a central genre within the field of art and film. He produced over 60 films, individually and in collaboration with filmmakers such as Alain Resnais and Agnes Varda.
About the artist
Marker's influence extends from art to experimental film and fiction, for example in relation to the science-fiction genre. The masterpiece La Jetée from 1962, for example, formed the basis for Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys (1995) and inspired filmmakers and musicians such as Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron and David Bowie.
Chris Marker was part of the French New Wave in Paris in the 60s, but is more often associated with the more politically oriented group Rive Gauche (Left Bank). Mark also worked as a writer, photographer, publisher and activist, and he was ahead of his time in his exploration of new media and multimedia installations.
Marker traveled all over the world throughout his life - with the camera as his eye. The rich footage includes everything from a temple for cats in Tokyo to frozen flowers at a research station in Siberia. Marker examined our cultural rituals, both ancient and modern – a holy place, a video game or street demonstrations. With an ethnographer's eye, he sought to depict people as part of their environment. He cut his own images together with found material from films, cartoons and the news footage, often with elements of his own animated sequences. Musical scores are woven together with sounds from everyday life while the narrator's voice meditates on time, history and memory.
Marker's films often have an underlying darkness in them – memories of a war-torn France, the brutality of colonialism and revolutions that failed. Throughout, Marker asks: What can the past tell us about the future? And what can the future say about the past?
The exhibition consists of four film installations, two multimedia installations, books, photographs and workbooks. A screening programme showing a selection of Marker's films is presented in the auditorium.
Seminar on Chris Marker
A Marker seminar will be realized at Kunstnernes Hus in January 2015 in collaboration with Maria Moseng and Maria Fosheim Lund, editors of the film magazine WUXIA. The exhibition will then travel on to Lund Kunsthall.
The seminar rounds off Kunstnernes Hus' Marker exhibition A Grin Without a Cat, a collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery in London. The speakers address themes ranging from the role of gesture in Marker's films to his multimedia installations, including his influence on other artists and the thematic relevance of the works in relation to changes in contemporary social memory practices.
About the exhibition
The exhibition's curator Christine Van Assche, Curator at Large at the Center Pompidou, is present during the opening days and will open the exhibition. Other curators are writer and film critic Chris Darke, and Magnus af Petersens, Curator at Large, Whitechapel Gallery/curator, Moderna Museet.
Kunstnernes Hus has reworked A Grin Without a Cat to adapt it to Kunstnernes Hus' premises. The exhibition is organized by the Whitechapel Gallery in London, where it had over 73,000 visitors and extensive press coverage.
Kunstnernes Hus has reworked A Grin Without a Cat to adapt it to Kunstnernes Hus' premises. The exhibition is organized by the Whitechapel Gallery in London, where it had over 73,000 visitors and extensive press coverage.
Programme in the Auditorium
31 October – 9 November
LE SOUVENIR D’UN AVENIR / REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS TO COME
Thursdays 11.00-20.00
Fridays 11.00-18.00
Saturdays and Sundays 12.00-18.00
13 November – 23 November
SAY J'AVAIS QUATRE DROMEDAIRES / IF I HAD FOUR DROMEDARIES
Thursdays at 18.00
Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m
4 – 14 December
LE JOLI MAI / THE LOVELY MONTH OF MAY
Thursdays 11.00-20.00
Fridays 11.00-18.00
Saturdays and Sundays 12.00-18.00
2 - 11 January
LETTRE DE SIBÉRIE / LETTERS FROM SIBERIA
Thursdays at 18.00
Fridays at 4 p.m
Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m
