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29/10/2006

Animated stories

Sala Rekalde, Bilbao

Curators: Juan Antonio A'lvarez Reyes, Marta Gili, Laurence Hazout Dreyfus and Neus Miro'.

Participating artists: Carlos Amorales, J. Tobias Anderson, Lars Arrhenius, Benoit Broisat, Donna Conlon, Catharina Van Eetvelde / Abigail Lang, Shelley Eshkar / Paul Kaiser, Kota Ezawa, Simon Faithfull, Ruth Go'mez, Susanne Jirkuff, Chung-Li Kao, William Kentridge, Zilla Leutenegger, Cristina Lucas, Cecilia Lundqvist, Basim Magdy, Feng Mengbo, Joshua Mosley, Till Nowak, Hans Op de Beeck, Sven Pahlsson, Arthur de Pins, Yusuke Sakamoto, Sara Serrano / Eduardo Balanza, Miguel Soares, Sheila M. Sofian, Martijn Veldhoen, Magnus Wallin and Lev Yilmaz.

"la Caixa" Community Projects and sala rekalde present the new strategies in animated film through some thirty works critical with the predominance of audiovisual disinformation.

Crabs able to philosophise, presidents who dance to a rap rhythm or Superman converted into a warplane. Seeking shelter in the universe of parody is the strategy employed by many animated film artists to question concepts like truth, authenticity and evidence. A number of these parodies give life to Animated Stories, an exhibition that was presented at CaixaForum in june and brings together in sala rekalde a selection of video-installations and films made by some thirty artists currently working in the field of animation. The aim of this display is not so much to deploy the multiple resources that digital technology places at the service of animation, but rather to explore to what extent creative strategies are capable of assuming critical responsibilities in the face of the predominance of audiovisual disinformation and the discredit of the image. This becomes highly perceptible in Trip to the Moon, the video-installation that is intended as a homage to the importance of the pioneer of animated film, Georges Me'lie's. Alongside William Kentridge, author of this fascinating work, Benoit Broisat, Kota Ezawa, Ruth Go'mez, Sheila M. Sofian, Chung-Li Kao, Zilla Leutenegger and Lev Yilmaz are just a few of the other represented artists. Produced by Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains and "la Caixa" Foundation, Animated Stories may subsequently be seen at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains, Nord-Pas de Calais (France).

One of the subjects that this exhibition brings to mind is the capability of contemporary art to take a critical approach to the world around us through fantasy and imagination. Throughout the History of Art, the most significant happenings have been represented in other forms more directly linked to illusion and magic than to analogy. Employing a similar critical discourse to that with which contemporary art has opened its doors to documentary film in recent years, it now reaches out a hand to animation.

The aim of many of the artists who work with documentary strategies is to explore the construction of stories that disarticulate notions like transparency, credibility and certainty. In the case of the animation universe, artistic practices probe the other side of the coin - disarticulation of the politics of truth, in other words, challenging the authority of those who set themselves up as approved interpreters of social truth.

The animated films chosen for this display maintain special relationships with the medium's classic tactics such as caricature, jokes, satire, fables and the metaphor. However, parody is perhaps the strategy that situates animated film squarely between the real and the fictitious. In this sense, the artists present in Animated Stories place themselves at the very limit between what may and may not be said, between the appropriate and the inappropriate. Some do so by attacking the policies of speculation and devastation of our surroundings (as is the case with Donna Conlon, Till Novak, Hans Op de Beck and Miguel Soares); others, by recovering the stories withheld from History (Kao Chung-li, Cristina Lucas and Feng Mengbo). The representation of absence, fear and exclusion (Carlos Amorales, J. Tobias Anderson, Zilla Leutenegger, Sven Pahlsson, Magnus Wallin, Sara Serrano and Eduardo Balanza) and the construction of notions like community and subjectivity in a period of rampant cultural capitalism (Benoit Broisat, Shelley Eshkar y Paul Kaiser, Simon Faithfull, Ruth Go'mez, Basim Magdy, Joshua Mosley, Yusuke Sakamoto, Martijn Veldhoen, Catherina van Eetvelde and Abigail Lang) are some of the other issues addressed in the exhibition.

The exhibition's documentary space presents a selection of short films on social issues made by Catalan authors during the seventies and eighties, including work from Jordi Toma's and Francesc Estrada, Jan Baca and Toni Garriga, Anna Miquel, and Dome'nec Aran and Arturo O'Neill.

Sala Rekalde
Alameda Recalde 30 - Bilbao
Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday: 11:00-14:00 / 17:00-20:30. Sunday and public holidays: 11:00-14:00. Close on Mondays

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