Art Basel’s week-long program of films by and about artists is curated by Maxa Zoller and Marian Masone. Zoller and Masone plan a diverse and challenging program of works that reflects on the complex role of media in today’s global world.
FILM PROGRAM
Monday, June 10, 2019, 9pm
Opening Film – Cao Fei, ‘Prison Architect’, 2018, 59′, Vitamin Creative Space
In ‘Prison Architect’, Cao Fei subtly deconstructs and brings together parallel realities, in orderto call into question received societalnotions of the relationship between freedom and the self. Two protagonists – a Chinese political prisoner in British colonial – era Hong Kong, and a modern-day architect struggling with her commission to design a new prison – gradually draw closer, creating a dialogue across space and time.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A withHu Fangand Maxa Zoller.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 7pm
Paul Grivas, ‘Film Catastrophe’, 2018, 55′
In 2010, ‘Film Socialisme’ by Godard explores the shipwreck of political ideals in Europe. In 2012, the CostaConcordia, which had served as an allegoric platform to Godard, sinks before the cameras of passengers and the entire world. In 2018, ‘Film Catastrophe‘by Paul Grivas, looks at images of the disaster to revisit the film factory.
The screening, in collaboration with Centre National des Arts Plastiques,will be followed by a Q&A with Paul Grivas and Marian Masone.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 9pm
Rashid Johnson, ‘Native Son’, 2019, 110′, Hauser & Wirth
Based on the seminal novel by Richard Wright, Native Son tells the story of Bigger Thomas, a young African American living in Chicago who is given an opportunity to work as a chauffeur for the affluent businessman Will Dalton. As Bigger enters this seductive new world of money and power – including a precarious relationship with Dalton’s beautiful, captivating daughter Mary – he will face unforeseen choices and perilous circumstances that will alter the course of his life fore
Wednesday,June 12, 2019, 9pm
Short Film Program ‘Collective Mythologies’
When HaraldSzeemann coined the term ‘individual mythologies’in the 1960s, it was mainly in reference to the male-dominated conceptual art of the time. The ‘Collective Mythologies’ short film program focuses on how a handful of contemporary female artists envision mythologies: as a collective artistic ritual grounded in group dynamics, that transmits the knowledge of previous generations through the body.
Carolina Caycedo, Apariciones/Apparitions, 2018, 9’10’‘, Commonwealth and Council Christine Rebet, Thunderbird, 2018, 5′, Bureau Cauleen Smith, Sojourner, 2018,20’02”, Kate Werble Gallery Rebecca Horn, Kopf – Extension, 1973, 3’25”; Einhorn, 1973, 3’11”; Kakadu-Maske, 1973, 2′ Sean Kelly
Thursday, June 13, 2019, 7pm
Fiona Tan, ‘Ascent’, 2016,80′, Peter Freeman,Inc., Frith Street Gallery
The photo-film has a long tradition within artistic practice. By animating single images using sound and narration, it is possible to create meditative and dreamlike cinematic experiences. Fiona Tan uses this form of storytelling in Ascent, a homage to the Japanese Mount Fuji. The film is no less colossal than the mountain, as it is composed of 4000 individual photographs takenover 150 years. With this monumental series of images, Tan evokes the culture of memory of one of the world’s most mystical destinations.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Fiona Tan and Maxa Zoller.
Thursday, June 13, 2019, 9pm
Prune Nourry,’Serendipity’, 2019, 74′, Templon
The French-born, New York–based artist has spent the majority of her artistic career creating workthat deals with women’s bodies and female fertility. A recent breast cancerdiagnosis led Nourry to create ‘Serendipity’ that began as a book project. It captures the subsequent evolution of her body, her work, her soul, and her mind.
The screening willbe followed by a Q&A with Prune Nourry and Marian Masone.
Friday, June 14,2019, 7pm
Short Film Program’Destroy, he said’
This short film program reflects the violence of our times on a playful, artistic level. In the films shown here, males encounter a silent adversary: sculpture. And the confrontation is (nearly) always fatal.
Eva Rothschild, Boys and Sculpture, 2012,25′, Modern Art, 303 Gallery, kaufmann repetto, TheModern Institute, Galerie Eva Presenhuber François Curlet, Air Graham, 2005-18,11′,Air de Paris HankWillis Thomas and Kambui Olujimi, Winter in America, 2005, 5′,Jack ShainmanGalleryMichael Rakowitz, The Ballad of Special Ops Cody and other stories, 14’42”, 2017, Barbara Wien
The screening will be followed by a talk with Kambui Olujimi and Maxa Zoller
Friday June 14, 2019, 9pm
Double FeatureMarxism Reloaded
In times of political crisis like the current moment, we look for alternative social systems, which inevitably leadsus back to the great counter-proposal to capitalism: communism.
This double program examines the theme of Marxism from two very different perspectives. Phil Collinspays tribute to Friedrich Engels, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, in the context of Brexit and the contemporary British working class, and 100 years after the Russian Revolution. Sven Johne, on the other hand, takes upa continental European position and proposes a completely new political future.
Sven Johne, Lieber Wladimir Putin / DearVladimir Putin, 2017,17’39”,Klemm’s Phil Collins, Ceremony, 2017, 67′, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
The screening will be followed bya Q&A with Sven Johneand Maxa Zoller.
Saturday, June 15, 2019, 8pm
Jeffrey Perkins,’George, The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus’,123′,2018
‘George – The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus’ is a documentary portrait of Lithuanian American artist, graphic designer, architect and impresario George Maciunas, who in 1961 established the avant-garde art movement Fluxus, an international association of artists working in varied disciplines. While Maciunas’s life events unfold, the film also engages debates not at all unfamiliar by artists working today; how do art and artists define relationships to political ideologies, capital exchange, communication technologies, globalism, collectivity and community? And how do these relationships function in a constant state of ‘flux’?
The discussion includes interviews with many notable artistsconnected to the Fluxus genesis, including Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Jonas Mekas and many others
Art Basel 2019 – Film
The Film program will be screened at Stadtkino Basel from Monday, June10 to Saturday, June 15, 2019.
Stadtkino,Klostergasse 5,4051 Basel.
Film ticketsare CHF 17
