"8th Biennial of Moving Images"
1999-11-05 until 1999-12-12
Centre pour l’image contemporaine
Geneva, , CH Switzerland

Since it was born in 1985 under the name International Video Week, the Biennial of Moving Images has been one of the largest and most important event of its kind in Switzerland and Europe. The Biennial is both a festival and a contemporary art exhibition. Each of the previous edition was organized around a central theme, and this year we chose to question a very accurate theme in the contemporary art field: cinema.

Cinema-like works (video screenings and installations requiring a dark space) have been numerously shown in museums and art spaces these last years. This now current habit operates a transformation in the perception of images by focusing on all types of mixed-perceptions; this was historically made possible by the coming out of major video artists (Viola, HIll) into the museum, and is prolonged by the interactive and multimedia trend. Interestingly enough, an increasing number of artists deliberately work on a limit, which by the way they tend to erase: the limit between a high visual culture (art history) and a pop visual culture (cinema and television).

The artists participating in the Biennial express a creative and critical view about cinema and museum. The time-based construction of fiction is central to many works (Godard, Baldessari, Oldendorf), and so is the difference between photographic and cinematographic images (Fischli/Weiss, Grandrieux, Moffatt, Warhol). Some artists operate a de-construction of perception (Bianchini, Korpys/Loeffler) or reflect on the interaction between architecture and cinema (Gonzalez-Foerster); some focus on alternative production and distribution means (Anna Sanders FIlms).

We wanted the Biennnial to be as multiple as the artists with whom we chose to work. Besides a group exhibition, the Biennial will therefore propose video and film screenings, performances, discussions, and a symposium. The artists and personnalities invited will take part in many aspects of the Biennial, regardless of categories. A bilingual catalogue (French/English) will be published at the occasion of the Biennial.

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Other Important Exhibitions in Switzerland