Everything Ending And Not

About

Everything Ending And Not consists in an installation display of the film All Closing And Dyke Bar And Everything Ending And Not And Death To The Ahistoric Vacuum. Completed in 2015, the film has been exhibited in Amsterdam and London in 2016.

Taking place on the last night at the last lesbian bar in Munich, the film follows a group of anonymous characters enacting, reenacting or reflecting upon their surroundings and the many, often conflicting stories of the various closed down lesbian and gay spaces in the city. In what seems like a single take that ends exactly where it starts and incorporating many smaller loops within the film’s journey, the status of the ‘last night’ as one of finality becomes more ambiguous.

Perspectives, stories and archival footage of Munich’s closed queer social spaces form the majority of the screenplay and reflect intimacy and personal interactions within their larger political context. Over the course of the journey the bar also becomes less discernible, a kind of hybrid space between a cinema, a private home and a club. As much of an exploration of collective queer memory as it is a research into the lost venues of Munich, the film emerges at a time when social space, particularly gay, lesbian or queer bars are in serious decline in the contemporary metropolis and attempts to conduct a queer archeology of the heterogeneity and fragility of these spaces and the people that frequent them.

All Closing… is filmed in The Moby Dyke, which was a temporary lesbian bar opened in Munich by Lothringer 13 Florida on the occasion of a residency by Richard John Jones. It features live music performed by the artist Cosy Piero, who was an essential part of Munich’s alternative nightlife from the 1960s through to the early 80s. The film also includes a performance by Maximiliane Baumgartner and Mirja Reuter which is part of their ongoing performative exploration of television melodramas. Archival footage is all courtesy of the Forum Homosexualitat, Munich.

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Richard John Jones (b. 1986, Chesterfield, UK) lives and works in Marseille and Amsterdam. His practice examines places, structures or histories that have been erased, forgotten or annihilated, and exposes the vacuum that they have left behind. Jones uses technology as a means to create room for fiction and revival, thereby continually evaluating the present in relation to the past. 

Jones is a graduate of the Sandberg Instituut and until 2012 was a Co-Director of Auto Italia South East. His work has been shown at EYE Film Festival, Amsterdam; Generation + Display, London; Rond Point Project Room, Marseille, SPACE, London, Gwangju Biennial, Korea amongst others. He works as a solo artist, and in collaboration with AA Bronson, Elise Carron, Natsuko Uchino, Huw Lemmey, Michael Oswell and many others.