Filipa Cesar
dal 11/9/2007 al 11/10/2007
Segnalato da
11/9/2007
Filipa Cesar
Galeria Distrito Cu4tro (Old space), Madrid
Rapport Raccord. All the works in display in the present exhibition refer themselves either to the form or to the content of cinematographic procedures, while doing so they managed to worm into the cinematic apparatus and to reflect upon it from the inside out.
Rapport Raccord
Filipa César (Oporto 1975) has already had a solo show in Espacio Distrito Cu4tro, Aura, 2005, and was part of XS, 2006, again at Espacio Distrito Cu4tro. She lives and works in Berlin but keeps firm ties with Portugal, where she shows regularly: Fundaçao Gulbenkian (Product Displacement, 2003, and Slow Motion, 2003), Museo Serralves, Porto, (Ringbahn, 2005), Galería Cristina Guerra (F for Fake, 2005). She is now showing in Collateral Events at the 52 Biennale di Venezia, Shot and Go – a Vision of Today’s International Photography; she is very much present internationally in group shows and art events with other artists.
Filipa César has been consistently exploring the fictional aspects of the documentary genre, having in the past produced works such as F for Fake or Ringbahn, which walk the thin line in between story-telling and chronicling. Attracted by the puzzling cracks on the narrative of daily-life the artist is always aware of the staged surface-effect of reality. Always willing to dig underneath its layers, Filipa César is however never cynical nor critical, always managing to keep a knowingly yet compassionate outlook on her subjects.
All the works in display in the present exhibition refer themselves either to the form or to the content of cinematographic procedures, while doing so they managed to worm into the cinematic apparatus and to reflect upon it from the inside out.
Raccord (2007) is a series of Film Setting’s photographs shot in the streets of Berlin. The city is currently being restyled as a center for culture and cultural productions, the gentrification process being mostly felt in its eastern part, which has been rebuilt in the last 17 years at an incredible pace. Such a ‘miracle boost’ endows the area with the paperboard artificiality of a movie set. Interestingly enough, all around the former East-Berlin, both German and international films are being shot, often revolving around the theme ‘Berlin’ itself. The photographs are, thusly, a documentation of the fleeting moments when a film team sets up their equipment transforming some city street into a Stage. By depicting the process of staging a set, in a set which is in itself already staged, the photos open up a mise-en-abîme in between the barren reality and the photogenic potential of the city-scape; the black and white film consciously evoking some sort of romantic regression into the recent and yet so distant past.
La Sortie du Cinéma (2006-2007) questions the border line between reality and fiction showing in a series of snap shots, the expression people while exiting the Cinema International at the Karl Marx Allee in Berlin.
Rapport (2007) is a video based on the documentation-footage of a NLP Seminar. Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a set of techniques, axioms and beliefs that adherents use primarily as an approach to personal development. It is based on the idea that mind, body and language interact to create an individual's perception of the world and that perceptions, and hence behaviors, can be changed by the application of a variety of techniques; in particular, "modeling" which involves the careful reproduction of the behaviors and beliefs of those who have achieved 'excellence'. The early focus of NLP was the study of the underlying patterns in the language and techniques of noted and successful therapists in hypnotherapy, gestalt therapy and family therapy. The patterns discovered were adapted for general communication and effecting change.
The basic idea of the exercises of NLP is a kind of a staging of the self in different times and spaces. Usually different characters are built up to embody the often paradoxical characteristics of the self. There are 3 figures in each process: the A (the client) the B (the driver) and C (the witness). "Rapport" is the technical word used to express the ability of the driver (B) to establish sympathetic relation with the client (A).Being shot in Germany, the video will inevitably reflect the inner conflicts of protestant culture, inasmuch and their staged resolution.
Allee der Kosmonauten (2007) is a single shot traveling –shot on super 16 mm transferred to DVD- through the pedestrian walk way in the "Allee der Kosmonauten", Berlin-Marzahn. The Avenue, named after Sigmund Jähn and Waleri Fjodorowitsch Bykowski’s, whose space trip was meant to tighten the ties between East Germany and the Soviet Union, is a landmark of what formerly was East-Berlin. Shot with the technical support of a Crane and a Steady-cam, this video presents a subjective-camera view of a walk on the "Allee der Kosmonauten", starting with a normal eye level POV, and progressively, loosening up from gravity, ascending to 8 meters above the ground in a day-dreaminess haunted by the communist cosmos, one of the tragic glories of the mechanical era.
Opening september 12 2007
Galeria Distrito Cu4tro
Barbara de Braganza 2 - Madrid
Free admission