KUNST FILM FEST #2, Part III: The Artist as Protagonist

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Hans Diernberger's 'Ich werde erwartet' (2008) shows the artist trying to put on red lipstick while riding a rollercoaster suggesting an imminent romantic encounter and a state of turbulent emotion. This activity counteracts the artist's attempt to keep a straight face. +++ 'Stealing Beauty' (2007) stars the artist Guy Ben-Ner, his then wife, and their children and was shot inside IKEA showrooms in New York, Berlin, and Tel Aviv. The artist uses the model rooms and merchandise as props, even appropriating IKEA’s soundtrack. Comedy ensues as customers encounter the family in domestic scenes such as lounging in their pyjamas or taking a bath. The family members struggle to keep up with the script discussing economic and cultural theories, despite repeatedly being interrupted and thrown out by the IKEA staff. +++ Minsun Lee’s 'Introduction of Work' (2016) is both an introduction to the artist’s recently produced works and an autobiographical account of the narrative governing Lee’s current life as an artist. Simultaneously satirical and conceptual in nature, Introduction of Work takes on a life of its own; we see it become a work in its own right. +++ 'Getting to Know You' (2013) was produced by Beth Dillon during a residency at the Green House artist retreat, located at the Fowlers Gap Arid Zone Research Station in far west NSW, Australia. The video is a record of the artist's attempts to connect with the surrounding landscape through a series of field studies and absurd athletic exercises. +++ Adrian Melis’ video 'Vigilia / Night watch' (2005-2006) documents a mischievous act carried out by the artist; stealing wood from a state-run carpentry in Cuba. Carpentries in Cuba are especially vulnerable to the diversion of state resources, one of the many symptoms of the population’s alienation under a corrupt government with a failing economic system. The theft is made possible thanks to the carpentry’s night watchman, who acts as the artist’s accomplice. Melis paradoxically uses the stolen wood to construct a surveillance post, which the artist gives back to the carpentry. +++ Jodie Whalen’s video performance 'Courage and Power (I'm Gonna Be A Bad Girl Too)' (2013) is both a homage to English rapper, singer-songwriter, and record producer M.I.A., and an act of ‘shameless self-promotion’. In it, the artist invites her audience to consider notions of physical and psychological finish lines; success and failure; obsession and self-belief. +++ In 'Scartato: Brooklyn' (2015), Michael Meneghetti utilises performative endurance as a way to broach environmental concerns (scartato = Italian for rubbish). We see the artist roam around Brooklyn (a suburb of Victoria, Australia, well known for its pollution), while strapping any trash he encounters to his body with packing tape. Gradually the artist morphs into a “human monument to litter”. +++ Composed of footage from a suite in Berlin’s Mandala hotel and from the top of Mount Lycabettus in Athens, Niklas Glodbach’s 'TEN' (2010) is a reference to Charles Wright Mills' concept of the 'power elite'. In this video Goldbach condenses the appearance of faceless, but effective global power systems into ten identical men in suits. These men perform rituals associated with worldwide business within the sterile surroundings of a luxury hotel. +++ Making Chinatown (2012) is Ming Wong’s reinterpretation of Roman Polanski’s seminal 1974 film Chinatown and examines the original film’s constructions of language, performance, and identity with the artist cast in the roles originally played by Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, and Belinda Palmer.

Join us this Friday for part three of our Kunst Film Fest #2, and stay tuned for further information on part four – our grand finale!