"MOVED PICTURES OF LAWRENCE WEINER"
2000-01-14 until 2000-01-16
Kunstlerhaus Cinema
Vienna, , AT Austria

The Kunstlerhaus Cinema in Vienna, Austria, is pleased to present the film series MOVED PICTURES OF LAWRENCE WEINER from the 14th to the 16th of January, 2000. For three nights, a selection of videos and films by the New York-based, conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner will be shown in Vienna for the first time. The program, curated by Barbara Clausen, will be presented in three non-chronological, thematic selections, altogether consisting of 15 videos and films, which Weiner has made since 1970. In addition, films by Paul Sharits, Kenneth Anger, and James Benning will be shown in the late program starting at 10.30 pm, juxtaposing as well as contextualizing Weiner’s films with other cinematic works.

Weiner’s filmmaking represents a continuous line of concerns in his oeuvre. Capturing reality in moved pictures in context with his statements and linguistic structures, the films are characteristic of his internationally renowned installation-based and written work, now also spoken and read aloud. These often cynical and humorous cinematic collaborations with colleagues, friends, and family show without judgment relations of one to the other, in scenes that span from discussion rounds to pornography in staged but spontaneous and familiar-seeming settings. Without necessarily relying on narrative or didactic structures, he investigates and repositions the relations of the actors to one another and to the viewer, who again becomes integral to the process realizing the work. His films are seen just as his statements are read, depending on the recipient in order to be realized.

In some of them, his role as director extends to being actor, cameraman, narrator, musician, and editor. This adds to their self-made, fast-paced style - the artist refers to them as home movies - and accentuates their material video quality, even if they were originally shot on film. Weiner’s first film A First Quarter from 1973 was shot on video and then transferred to film, in a play with different material qualities, perception, and effects of both mediums, showing his concern to not be a “material romantic”. In consequence his conscious choice to distance himself from the esthetic dogmas of most experimental filmmakers is evident.

Until now, Weiner’s films have not been pinned down as being part of either the art or film world and have had only sporadic screenings in the States and Europe, due to their particular autonomous esthetic quality and messages. As the artist-film has taken on a more significant role in the 90’s, Weiner’s cinematic works are being re-investigated and shown at various film houses and festivals internationally. A sculpture is a sculpture and material, it’s only about the relationship of objects to objects in relation to human beings. But cinema is relations of human beings to human beings because you visualize unless youíre making a cinema only of objects, a cinema mecanique, and I don’t; I always make cinema of people. That means the people on the screen are relating to the people in the audience as a primary relation; the contenu, the content, is the secondary relationship. Lawrence Weiner, 1990

For further information please contact the K/haus in Vienna at+43 1 587 96 63 21

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