Films
Haunch of Venison Berlin is pleased to present the first ever solo exhibition
in Germany of video works by the award-winning Belgian artist and filmmaker
Nicolas Provost.
Presented in conjunction with the 60th Berlin International Film Festival, Haunch
of Venison will be premiering Storyteller (2010). Simultaneously Long Live the New
Flesh (2009), Provost’s latest film in which existing fragments from horror films are
transmogrified into a new film, will be premiered in competition in Berlinale Shorts.
Long Live the New Flesh deploys a technique in which the images literally consume
one other and the horror in all its visual power is brought to a natural boiling point.
All the ingredients that have secured Provost’s experimental art films their
international success are once again present here. Provost strips down the imagery
of a mass medium, uses it to construct a new visual story beyond the dissection and
horror, and allows the viewer to cross every phase of the emotional spectrum.
Storyteller (2010) takes found stock footage of the cosmopolitan skyline, recom-
posing and mirroring the images to create a slick artificiality reminiscent of science
fiction.
Provost’s work uses the language of film to manoeuvre and influence the interpre-
tation of images and stories. He manipulates time, codes and form, twisting and
shaping new narratives and experimental sensations that tightly bind visual art
and cinematography. He taps into our collective filmic memory and reconstructs
it to stunning effect. Duality is intrinsic in much of his work, both literally with optical
mirroring and conceptually when he toys with the blurred boundaries between
fiction and reality, the sublime and the ugly, the utopian and the concrete, the
marvellous and the terrible, and finally, between truth and invention. Provost is part
scientist and part magician, generating a grotesque visual poetry of hypnotic beauty
and macabre consequences.
In addition to the premieres of Long Live the New Flesh (2009) and Storyteller
(2010), Haunch of Venison will be screening Gravity (2007), Suspension (2007) and
The Divers (2006).
Image: Suspension, 2007, Video Projection, 4 minutes
BERLINALE SCREENING INFORMATION
For venue details and screening times for Long Live the New Flesh please check
the Berlinale website: http://www.berlinale.de
NICOLAS PROVOST
Nicolas Provost (b.1969, Belgium) is a filmmaker and visual artist living and working
in Brussels, Belgium. His work is a reflection on the grammar of cinema and the
relationship between visual art and the cinematic experience. He has also
written and directed several short and mid-length fiction films. His work has been
broadcast, screened and exhibited worldwide on both visual art platforms and
film festivals and have earned a long list of awards and screenings at prestigious
festivals including The Sundance Film Festival, The San Francisco International
Filmfestival, Cinevegas, The International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Viennale
and The Locarno Film Festival. Solo exhibitions include The Seattle Art Museum,
Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg, France, De Brakke Grond,
Amsterdam, Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp, C-Space Gallery, Beijing,
The International Media Art Biennale, Poland Solar Galeria de Arte Cinematica,
Vila do Conde, Portugal. Provost is currently developing his first feature film,
The Invader, a thriller about an anti-heroic immigrant and his struggle for economic
and emotional survival in the new world.
For information and images please contact Bendetta Roux, Brunswick Arts :
T +49 30 20673370 E broux@brunswickgroup.com
Haunch of Venison Berlin
Heidestrasse 46 - 10557 Berlin
Hours
Tue/Sat 11.00 - 18.00