ON MOCK-UPS, HOME VIDEOS AND HOUSEKEEPING A FILM-BASED EXHIBITION IN 3 PARTS
March 26 - May 3, 2008 Opening reception March 25, 6.30 PM
1 - Mock-Ups in Close-Up (Architectural Models in Cinema 1927 - 2007) A video project by Gabu Heindl and Drehli Robnik, 2008 March 25 - April 5, 2008
Mock-Ups in Close-Up (Gabu Heindl and Drehli Robnik, 2008) is a comprehensive overview of one of the least-explored territories in the relationship between architecture and cinema. Over 100 different scenes (taken from films produced between 1927 and 2007), all including architectural models, are collated to become in themselves a 105-minute movie. The screening at Storefront on March 25 will be the world premier of this video project by the Vienna-based duo.
Although it contains some obvious classics, such as Housing Problems [1935], King Vidor´s The Fountainhead [1948] and Peter Greenaway´s Belly of an Architect [1987], this compilation does not primarily deal with "films about architecture". Rather, it offers a section through an all-inclusive film history which, in the project's re-writing, appears to be obsessed with showing models in a variety of contexts: be it on the fringes or in the center of a scene, models pop up in love stories, thrillers, psychological dramas, comedies or sci-fi.
The films compiled include arthouse and blockbuster fare, "auteur cinema" as well as contributions to film franchises such as Dr. Mabuse, James Bond, Dirty Harry, Death Wish, Indiana Jones, Robocop, Austin Powers and X-Men cycles. The list of filmmakers who could not resist to either pan over or to focus on architectural models includes Fritz Lang, King Vidor, Sergio Leone, Alain Resnais, Sam Fuller, Arthur Penn, Robert Aldrich, Michelangelo Antonioni, Francis Ford Coppola, Don Siegel, Stanley Kubrick, Margarethe von Trotta, Robert Zemeckis, Penny Marshall, Peter Greenaway, Oliver Stone, Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg, Ben Stiller, the Farrelly Brothers, and Wes Anderson.
SPECIAL EVENT Friday March 28, 6.30pm: Author's presentation followed by open discussion with Beatriz Colomina. The talk will raise some key questions on film history, archiving, "photogénie" and specific typologies of architectural models and the roles they play in movies from an architect or urbanist´s point of view.
2 - Come to Israel: It's hot and wet and we have the Humus Recent video works by Ruti Sela & Maayan Amir and Yossi Atia & Itamar Rose Curated by Joshua Simon April 8 - April 19, 2008
A collection of short Israeli art films that use role-playing as an instrument of social investigation. Shopping malls and checkpoints, outings and family BBQs, war zones and everyday entertainment are all the subject of Israeli the satirical experiments of filmmakers Rose and Atia. Juxtaposed with this series is Sela & Amir's acclaimed video trilogy of barhopping, S&M quickies and prostitution, a steamy first-person investigation into the sexual practices of Tel Aviv's nightlife that often uncovers complex military reminiscences. Curated by Joshua Simon.
Rose and Atia's satirical shorts, as they call them, have been attracting attention in their hometown of Tel Aviv, mostly by word of mouth, since 2005. Their movies, which feature them in a variety of fictional characters interviewing Israelis they meet or approach on the street, the mall or the park, squarely take on the highly controversial issue of Israeli society's relationship with race, gender and sexuality.
In their video trilogy Beyond Guilt (2004-2006), the female duo Sela & Amir investigates pick-up bars, internet dating sites and call girl services in Israel, revealing the deep effects of the army experience on the most intimate practices of young Israelis. As they actively participate and try to seduce young men in restrooms of pick-up joints, schedule anonymous sessions with S&M partners and pay a prostitute to film them with her in a hotel room, the two upset the balances of power between photographer and photographed; male and female; multiple and singular; object and subject.
SPECIAL EVENT Thursday April 10, 6pm: Presentation of the filmic work of Ari Libsker. Libsker, who is showing his documentary film Stalags - Holocaust and pornography in Israel at the Film Forum (opening April 9), will be speaking at Storefront for Art and Architecture about his ongoing filmic investigating of perversion and Jewish sexuality. He will also be showing three short videos he shot in Tel Aviv (2003), London (2004) and Accra, Ghana (2007), which he made as part of his ongoing video-project Lectures.
3 - Koolhaas Houselife Stories from the daily life of Guadalupe Acedo, caretaker and housekeeper of the House in Bordeaux designed by Rem Koolhaas A film by Ila Bęka and Louise Lemoine April 22 - May 3, 2008
Koolhaas Houselife is a film by Ila Bęka and Louise Lemoine on one of the masterpieces of contemporary architecture: the house in Bordeaux designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA. Unlike most movies about architecture, this feature focuses less on explaining the building, its structure and its virtuosity than on letting the viewer enter into the invisible bubble of the daily intimacy of one of the icons of contemporary architecture. This experiment presents a new way of looking at architecture and broadens the field of its representation.
Like any house, this is a place where different lives are lived, with all its chaos, its wear and tear, and its changes. The work of Bęka and Lemoine offers us a portrait of the real and changing vitality of one of those monuments that we believe are immortal. This is realized through the stories and daily chores of Guadalupe Acedo, the home's caretaker and housekeeper, and the other people who look after the building. Following and interacting with Guadalupe, blooms an unusual and unpredictable look at the spaces and structure of the building.
