CHRIS MARKER: SELECTED WORKS 1957 – 2011

9 October – 3 November 2012
Opening Reception: 8 October 2012, 6.30 – 9.00 PM

- -

London, England – 25 September 2012 – The Louise Blouin Foundation, in collaboration with Peter Blum Gallery, is pleased to present Chris Marker: Selected Works 1957-2011, a survey exhibition that will feature over three hundred photographs and video installations by the late Chris Marker (1921-2012) from 5^th October – 3^rd November 2012 at the Louise Blouin Foundation in London. The exhibition will be celebrated with an opening reception on 8 October 2012.

The show will include seven bodies of work that span nearly six decades of the artist’s career, from KOREANS (1957), an unexpected documentation of a presently arcane country; to PASSENGERS (2008-2011), his last major body of work.

“From his groundbreaking work in film to his episodic photographic essays, Marker has turned a defiant curiosity toward images into poetic journeys about the human condition and the desire to create history,” expresses exhibition curator Matthew Drutt. “A self-described benevolent paprazzo, he has copiously captured his observations of everything from a newly established socialist utopia in North Korea to political marches on the streets of Washington and Paris and everyday life in the Paris Metro. His work is passionate, insightful, personal, and universally significant.”

PASSENGERS marked the artist’s first series of color photographs, and captures the many private and personal actions of commuters in transit on the Paris Métro. In his own words, Chris Marker writes:

The PASSENGERS are reflected in the artificial light, in the glass of the windows, in the metal of the poles and in the eyes of their fellow travellers. We catch them in their moments of beauty, innocence, humor, grief, their tired loneliness. Their image has been frozen. We are transfixed.

KOREANS, photographed in 1957, offers a rare, unrecognizable and obscure glimpse of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in the years immediately following the Korean War, when the communist country expressed idealist hopes prior to becoming an impenetrable
totalitarian territory. Romantic, opulent, and elegant, the images open an often forgotten window into the nascent optimism that once captured the country’s citizens.

OWLS AT NOON PRELUDE: THE HOLLOW MEN, a silent eight-channel video installation, extends an unapologetic portrayal of the ravages of World War I. Borrowing influence from T.S. Eliot, verses of “The Hollow Men”, a poem written amidst the violence of the early 20^th
century, are interlaced between startling images that document the unfathomable acts and capabilities of human cruelty.

This survey of Chris Marker is the first of its kind for the artist, which continues the Louise Blouin Foundation’s commitment to promoting cultural dialogue and global exchange through the examination of art. Past exhibitions at the Louise Blouin Foundation include The October Issue (2011), Pure Views: New Painting from China (2010), Kandinsky Prize (2009), Louise Nevelson: Dawns and Ducks (2009), Wang Guangyi: Cold War Aesthetics (2009) and James Turrell: A Life I Light (2006).

About Louise Blouin Foundation
The Louise Blouin Foundation, founded in 2004 by Louise Blouin, is an international non-profit organization that seeks to address the challenges and opportunities of globalization by using cultural dialogue and diplomacy as a key method for dialogue and exchange. This platform focuses on such diverse areas as international trade, foreign policy, education and the environment through the utilization of a multidisciplinary approach that emphasizes the role of culture and the arts.

For further information, a complete press pack or a list of artworks, please contact:

Eunice Kim
Director of Public Relations
Louise Blouin Foundation
+001 646 753 9061
EKim@artnfo.com

Media Partners and Sponsors
Chris Marker: Selected Works 1957-2011 is presented in collaboration with Peter Blum Gallery, sponsored by Blouin ARTINFO (http://uk.blouinartinfo.com), and made possible by Cirkers Hayes.

Chris Marker, KOREANS, 1957. Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery.

CHRIS MARKER: SELECTED WORKS 1957 – 2011