The Owl’s Legacy and its Discontents
The third chapter of the Moving Image Departmentreflects the medium of the documentary
Trade Fair Palace: 30th September2015 – 3rd January2016
The theme of the third chapter of the exhibition cycle of the National Galleryin Prague, Prostor pro pohyblivý obraz/ Moving Image Department, is the medium of the documentary in contemporary visualart. The focal point of the present exhibition in theVeletržníPalace, with the subtitleThe Owl’s Legacy and its Discontentsis the workInner Time of Televisionfrom2010.
In this joint projectthe Otolith Group and the French film-maker Chris Marker reconfigure his work entitledL’heritage de la chouetteorThe Owl’s Legacy, a thirteen-part television cycle from 1989 dealing with the culture of ancient Greece, as an installation and an accompanying“artist’s book”. The Owl’s Legacyinvestigates thelegacies and potential of ancient Greecethrough the continuous modulation of video material, voiceover commentary and studio interviews with experts on this classical period, filmmakers, dramatists, composers, philosophers and other specialists. “All thirteen episodes of The Owl’s Legacy present in the gallery can be experienced as a whole and can also be followed separately. Inner Time of Television thus disrupts the logic of a cycle of television documentaries and indicates that the context for this work with the medium of the moving picture, which has resisted the conventions of television recording in the given genre, has shifted radically to the level of contemporary art,”says curator Jen Kratochvil.
Chris Marker and his work, about whom the film theorist Roy Armes announced that “Marker is unclassifiable because he is unique…The French Cinema has its dramatists and its poets, its technicians, and its autobiographers, but only has one true essayist: Chris Marker…” stand at the cradle of the tradition of documentary strategies in contemporary art. “His ability to reproduce learning and present knowledge in film are the foundation stones for the most widespread manifestations of contemporary work with the medium of the moving picture, video-essays and documentaries. It is thus the platform for all the works of the third chapter of the Moving Image Department – the films of Eric Baudelaire, Duncan Campbell, Christian Jankowski and Lucy Raven,”adds Kratochvil. The presentation of these research strategies, however, fundamentally exceeds the moving picture itself and we can also seek them in the paintings of Maria Loboda, in the films and architecture of Josef Dabernig and in the spatial installations of Liam Gillick.
The content of the third chapter of the Moving Image Department is also linked to the theme of this year’sFotograf Festival, which is the medium of the documentary. The Festival will thus begin together with the opening of the autumn exhibition season in the Veletržní Palace. In the area of the Small Vestibule(Malá dvorana)above the NG bookshop – KOENIG BOOKS – a festival reading room will be open for the duration of the Fotograf Festival.Also emerging in content from the Moving Image Department is the project entitledCurrent Formats of the Are Association, which wants to develop,in cooperation with cultural, educational and artistic institutions, a programme of international events,which are linked to current art projects.
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Moving Image Department
Chapter III:
The Owl’s Legacy and its Discontents
Artists: Eric Baudelaire, Duncan Campbell, Josef Dabernig, Liam Gillick, Christian Jankowski, Maria Loboda, Lucy Raven
Curators: Adam Budak, Jen Kratochvil
Venue: Veletržní palác, Dukelských hrdinů 47, Praha 7
Dates: 30. 9. 2015 – 3. 1. 2016
Entry free
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