Indepth Arts News:
"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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