Johan Grimonprez, Artist's Talk

About

Johan Grimonprez will talk about his work in the exhibition at The Fruitmarket Gallery, to book contact the bookshop on bookshop@fruitmarket.co.uk, or call 0131 226 9191. Belgian artist Johan Grimonprez was propelled to international prominence when his highly acclaimed one-hour video Dial H-I-S-T-0-R-Y, a smart, visually complex and utterly compelling cultural history of aeroplane hijackings, was first shown at Documenta X in 1997. In 2008, a first version of his new film, Double Take, took the Basel Art Fair by storm. Like Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, Double Take is a montage of film, television and documentary footage, with a complex mix of meanings and counter-meanings. This film charts the global rise of fear-as-commodity in a tale of odd couples and double deals that casts Alfred Hitchcock's work and persona as central to and reflective of a world in flux. This exhibition is the first British gallery showing of Double Take, and presents it in the context of Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, the earlier film Kobarweng or Where is Your Helicopter, 1992 and the multichannel installation It Will Be All Right If You Come Again, Only Next Time Don't Bring Any Gear, Except A Tea Kettle..., 1994—2001. A sustained presentation of the work of this important international artist, this exhibition offers the chance to trace the development of Grimonprez's persuasive, ongoing enquiry into the doubled and troubled relationship the modern Western world has with its own social, cultural, historical and political identity, and with its representation of that identity to itself.