White Frame presents
Films and videos from Switzerland and China
kult.kino Atelier November 19, 2019 18:30
The Compiler Screenings 2019
Passageways are usually long and narrow spaces that connect one place to another. We usually go through them emerging from a physical exercise, a mental gymnastic or a biological process. In all states, the body is central to the experience. We extended our invitation for this 4th edition of The Compiler Screenings to ShanghART Gallery from Shanghai giving a focus to productions from China mainland and Switzerland. ShanghART video library was established in 2008 and include 600 contemporary video art works. They host salons and screenings regularly in Shanghai. Our guest curator Shi Yong proposed to examine the thematic of the body in personal and public spaces through a selection of 7 productions. We responded with 5 Swiss productions compiling this year’s edition. We are also extending the invitation to Giuseppe Di Salvatore and Ruth Baettig from filmexplorer. They will moderate the evening proposing to view the selected 12 films and videos in three screening blocs.
The Compiler Screenings 2019 White Frame presents “Passageways� films and videos from Switzerland and China. For this 4th edition, White Frame is partnering with ShanghART and guest co-curator Shi Yong. He is joining Chantal Molleur from White Frame. Following the screening, there will be a conversation moderated by Giuseppe Di Salvatore and Ruth Baettig from Filmexplorer with Chantal Molleur at the cafe of the cinema in presence of some artists and filmmakers.
BLOCK 1
BLOCK 2
Kids
BI
Michael Frei, Switzerland, 2019, 9’, B&W, English
CHEN Xiaoyun, China, 2007, 5’ 30”, colour, no dialogue
An experimental project about group dynamics. How do we define ourselves when we are all equal?
BI is a fierce beast in legend which stands for Imprisonment. Initially, this video is an individual psychological scan surrounded by constraint, disturbed by confusion and wrapped by desire. Then is the fierce conflict caused by the slaved and enslaved relationship between reality and ourselves. The roaring trucks are circling a person trapped a sludge. There is no way out of that sense of frustration trapped like a prison in each of our hearts.
Orchid Finger
TANG Maohong, China, 2004, 8’ 12”, colour, no dialogue The distinctive aroma of art invented by TANG Maohong permeates his animation video Orchid Finger. All the figures are displayed within round frames traditionally adopted in Chinese painting for themes like flowers and birds. The description of scenarios including flowers, pagodas and mushrooms has significantly deviated from still pictures in traditional sense. Talking in a straightforward language, it is a surreal world with self-humour, where human, animals and plants interacting with each other all gather together in the big carnival.
Monsieur Sélavy
Peter Volkart/Anita Hansemann, Switzerland, 2008, 10’, colour, German with English Subtitles On the move with Monsieur Sélavy. A film diary about the vicissitudes of existence and how to encounter them with dignity. A journey in which space and time coordinates become a bit tangled...
Rainbow
XU Zhen, China, 1998, 3’ 12”, colour, no dialogue XU Zhen started out making videos that focused on the body and public space in a manner reminiscent of early Bruce Nauman or Vito Acconci: For example, the video “Rainbow” (1998) shows a person’s back growing increasingly red, the result of slaps heard on the sound track but never seen.
On Line
Kanxuan ai!
At first, an abstract image turns into a black line and spots turns into birds. The hand held camera trembles along the cable. The birds seemed oversized. The perspective of the image disintegrates and their proportions collapse. Gradually, rooftops, fireplaces, antennas and their silhouettes dissolves as the Basel Rhine promenade appears in the midst of an early morning. We know what we see, but at the same time we also see painting, ice landscape and unfamiliarity.
The experimental form of handheld camera-work, low-tech and smallscale offers an intimate experience of the aesthetics of everyday life and bodily experience. The artist running against a crowd in an underground station tunnel, hair flowing behind her in an act of pure freedom, shouting her own name and then answering to herself: ‘Ai!’
Mireille Gros, Switzerland, 2008, 1’ 22”, colour, no dialogue
Light and Easy 2
YANG Zhenzhong, China, 2003, 6’, colour, no dialogue The works by YANG Zhenzhong display his hope to challenge the conventional definition of social behaviour. His creation is never destitute of metaphor, intelligence and humour. In Light and Easy 2, the artist arranges the video of Shanghai’s cityscape along The Bund waterfront down and presents unexpected an acrobatics performance.
KAN Xuan, China, 1999, 1’ 22”, colour, Chinese
BLOCK 3
Membrane
Max Philipp Schmid, 2019, 9’, colour, German Has the catastrophe already happened or is it about to? Two men and a woman sit in their bunker-like apartments, as if they were in a waiting room. Overwhelmed by the flood of media information and guidebook words of wisdom their passive bewilderment turns into frenzied activism.
Great Era
ZHANG Ding, China, 2007, 14’, colour, no dialogue The film “Great Era” (2007) is a surrealistic Fellini-inspired voyage using Shanghai as its theatrical backdrop. The protagonist rides along staged tableaus with his bike (disguised as a horse) in scenes perfectly synchronized with the film’s sound score. ZHANG Ding once commented: “Someone is lost in big cities, someone is looking for them in big cities and a person is recording the way of this search in big cities.” Starting from Shanghai as its background, Great Era unfolded the narration in a surrealistic fashion overflowing with Chinese taste.
Mama Rosa
Dejan Barac, Switzerland, 2019, 20’, Colour, Croatian with German Subtitles The filmmaker provides us with an insight into his mother’s life. Rosa is originally from Croatia and has lived in Switzerland for many years, with her husband who depends on her care. She takes care of everything. Her children have grown up and want to leave home to escape the asphyxiating atmosphere. Rosa stays behind alone.
First Spring
YANG Fudong, China, 2010, 9’ 11”, 35 mm b&w film transferred to video, music: Jin Wang, no dialogue First Spring is inspired by the ancient Chinese proverb “A year’s plan starts with spring”. Spring is the beginning of a year as a good harvest depends on the spring sowing. In the work, different dynasty characters appear at the same time as modern people. There are a series of incredible life encounters happening between them, especially, young people suspended in the sky and walking carefully. The work creates a psychedelic time and space that meets the turmoil. However, the paradoxical sense of dreams in the state of uncertainty is actually the illusion that is happening while filming in the studio.
White Frame (WF) produces and curates exhibitions and screenings, offering artists greater visibility for their art. Established in 2011 in Basel, Switzerland, our nonprofit nomadic association operates at the intersection of video art, cinema and photography. WF strive to forge national and international networks and generate collaboration. WF initiate and implement projects and facilitate exchange between Swiss and international artists, institutions, independent curators, festival programmers, writers and the public. Chantal Molleur is the founder and curator of White Frame. She has produced and curated with White Frame over 30 exhibitions and screenings nationally and internationally. Prior to founding White Frame in 2011, she worked with a number of art organisations in distribution and dissemination in Canada. She has participated in international film and video festivals. Chantal has served on boards of directors and on juries for grants awarded to institutions, artists and filmmakers in Switzerland and in Canada. She is film promoter at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts for the BA Animation and MA Film departments. She closely collaborates with Freihändler Film Production in the evaluation and promotion of films. www.whiteframe.art ShanghART – Founded in 1996, ShanghART Gallery is one of the first contemporary art galleries established in China now maintaining spaces in Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore. For the past twenty years, ShanghART has kept devoting to the development of contemporary art in China and also kept close and long-term cooperation with more than 60 artists. Sustaining the highest-quality in presenting contemporary art exhibitions and projects, ShanghART regularly participates in the major international art fairs and collaborates with important art institutions in China and from all over the world. Shi Yong is a representative figure of contemporary Chinese artists who first started working with installation and video. Since 1993, his works have been widely exhibited both in China and abroad. His earliest artistic practices focused on revealing the subtlety of our reality and the inherent tension of the “system”. Since the end of 1990s, Shi Yong began focusing on the idea of Shanghai’s transformations under the Chinese economic reform, which contributed to discussions on globalisation and consumerism. Shi Yong is a close collaborator of ShanghART Gallery. www.shanghartgallery.com Founded in 2016 in Basel, Filmexplorer is an online platform dedicated to moving images between art and cinema, and focuses on the selection and discussion of works that are shown in Switzerland. Filmexplorer speaks four languages and has a strong multimedia orientation, from critical texts to video-interviews up to a podcast channel. Often in collaboration with festivals, Filmexplorer is also committed to live activities like discussions in round tables or presentations of films. www.filmexplorer.ch
White Frame would like to thank the filmmakers and the artists. This project is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Christoph Merian Foundation and the Division of Cultural Affairs Basel-Stadt.
graphic: grubergestaltung.ch