VW (VeneKlasen/Werner) is pleased to announce CONTINUOUS PROJECTIONS, an exhibition of film and video works by Martin Arnold, Gary Beydler, Phil Solomon and Fred Worden, curated by William E. Jones.
CONTINUOUS PROJECTIONS proposes no overarching thesis; rather, its ambition is to present in as simple and straightforward a manner as possible important works by four film artists revered in their respective circles, though not chiefly known as artists. Martin Arnold, Gary Beydler, Phil Solomon and Fred Worden explore experimental film as both medium and subject matter, and question the habitual divisions of "cinema" and "art".
MARTIN ARNOLD (b. 1959, Vienna) transforms idyllic or banal scenes in Hollywood films into hypnotic sequences of comic and nightmarish intensity. His most recent work, Shadow Cuts (2010), depicts flickering images from a classic cartoon, in which the animated characters' eyes are gradually disassociated from their respective bodies. Their temporary blindness is mirrored by viewers' fractured perception.
Over the course of an entire year, GARY BEYDLER (1944-2010) filmed Venice Pier (1976), shooting from different vantage points and at various times of day, every couple of days. His finished film depicts a "spatially correct" procession down the entirety of the pier, but with a disordered chronology. Each cut is a jump forward or backward in time, from night to day, rain to sunshine, populated to desolate - but always moving "forward" to the end of the pier, one cement block at a time.
PHIL SOLOMON (b. 1954, New York) appropriated the video game Grand Theft Auto IV to create EMPIRE (2010). His premise is simple: he played the game until the action brought him to the top of a tall building with a view of the Empire State Building...and then he left it there. The resulting film depicts an ambient cityscape directly engaged with Warhol's infamous 16mm film, Empire, of 1964.
FRED WORDEN (b. 1946, New York) makes use of intermittent projection and other techniques to uncover new meaning and experience in film, beyond the realm of naturalistic representation. Here (2005) is an exhilaratingly rhythmic sequence comprised of alternating fragments from two films, looped and shown in rapid succession. What would seem to be the embodiment of perpetual motion instead takes on a paradoxical quality of stillness and abstraction - an "optical location" conjured by the artist.
CONTINUOUS PROJECTIONS opens September 14 with a presentation by William E. Jones and Olaf Möller. The exhibition continues through October 23. Throughout the run of CONTINUOUS PROJECTIONS the gallery will present several screenings devoted to the individual artists. Please visit vwberlin.com for screening dates and times.