12 evenings OF REMEMBRANCE
The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art in collaboration withGoethe Institut Max Mueller Bhavan invite you to a
Presentation by Curator Olaf Stuber
followed by the screening of
Harun Farocki’s film Ubertragung (Transmission) from 2007
January 13, 2016| 5.30 pm
FICA Reading Room, D 42, Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024.
The film ispart of a series of video works by noted artists titled ‘12 Evenings of Remembrance’. Curated by Olaf Stuber the films explore ideas of memory.
The first three videos in the inaugural presentations deal with questions and situations arising from historical memory, anecdotal memory, trauma and memorials.
Apart from FICA Reading Room screening, other films - Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) 2011 and Wie aus der Ferne (As From Afar) 2013 by Dani Gal and Die Leere Mitte (The Empty Center) 1998 by Hito Steyerl - will be screened at Goethe Institut Max Mueller Bhavan on January 16 and 17, 2016.
About the film and the series:
Harun Farocki’s Transmission, 2007, is a 43 minute film that addresses places of memory set in stone . Transmission examines the pull and adoration of monuments scattered all over the world that have become goals for pilgrims and tourists and now serve to meet a whole range of different needs, from personal memory to spiritual enlightenment and religious sentiment. Farocki’s journey starts from the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, a wall of black granite engraved with the names of all the 58,249 Americans killed in the Vietnam War. Thousands of people visit it every day, touch the letters and trace the names of family and friends in an attempt to establish a link between their own lives and the past. Other objects of pilgrimage – including the foot of the statue of the Apostle in St Peter’s and the Bocca della Verità in Rome as well as the devil’s footprint in the Frauenkirche in Munich and the monument in the Buchenwald concentration camp – meet the same need for understanding and purification. Stone is the material in which the collective memory of a life or an event in the past is immortalized and becomes an object of worship. At the same time, the memory of thousands of visitors is preserved in the traces of wear it displays.
The series '12 Evenings of Remembrance’ brings together a compelling collection of videos by noted artists like Hito Steryl, Anri Sala, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani, Harun Farocki, Filipa César, Omer Fast, Sven Johne, Eleonore de Montesquiou, Marcel Odenbach, Katarina Zdjelar, Yael Bartana, Dani Gal, Clemens von Wedemeyer and Dirk Peuker und Bettina Nürnberg. The films explore how we remember. What happens when knowledge and history replace memory? Does it help to forget? Is remembering, repeating and working through memories the only way to come to terms with them? What are the lessons that can be drawn from history that are not learnt? What do outside observers know that those involved do not?
About the Curator:
For more then 20 years Olaf Stüber has been working in the art world as gallery owner, curator and lecturer. In his 10 years’ gallery work he shows in 73 exhibitions more then 200 artists. Very early the program focuses on moving image works (artist film and video art). In 2008 Olaf Stüber founded together with Ivo Wessel – a collector friend – an international platform for moving image works in Berlin: Videoart at Midnight. Once the month on a Friday always at midnight he invites artists to show their video works on the big screen of the legendary Babylon Film Theatre in Berlin-Mitte. Each night is dedicated to one artist. The artists are present – it is their night. Often the artists took the chance to celebrate premiers and some times live acts or they show works that have never shown before. The aim of the screening series is to give an insight into the current video art production of Berlin’s international art scene and to offer a forum both for renowned artists as well as for upcoming promising artists. Further Olaf Stüber is publisher of the Videoart at Midnight Edition, holds internationally lectures on video and artist films and the art market, curates video programs for institutions, fairs and festivals and has been member of juries such as Videokunstförderpreis Bremen 2009, Dokfilmfestival Kassel 2012, Videonale e.V. at Kunstmuseum Bonn 2013 or recently EMAF – European Media Art Festival 2015.
Other films from the collection will continue to be screened through February and March 2016. For updated schedule please visit http://www.goethe.de/ins/in/en/ned/ver.cfm
