Jonas Mekas
dal 28/10/2009 al 22/11/2009
Segnalato da
28/10/2009
Jonas Mekas
James Fuentes LLC, New York
The Destruction Quartet features four simultaneously running yet unsynchronized films that bring together fragments of symbolic and real acts of destruction. The videos consist of footage from the demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1990, Danius Kesminas' 1991 fire sculpture, (New York) Consequence, a 1997 Nam June Paik performance in which Paik wrecks a piano, and the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center from the roof of Mekas' SoHo apartment building.
James Fuentes LLC is pleased to present The Destruction Quartet, a four channel video
installation by Jonas Mekas. The Destruction Quartet features four simultaneously running yet
unsynchronized films that bring together fragments of symbolic and real acts of destruction. The
videos consist of footage from the demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1990, Danius Kesminas' 1991
fire sculpture, (New York) Consequence, a 1997 Nam June Paik performance in which Paik wrecks
a piano, and the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center from the roof of Mekas' SoHo
apartment building.
While the soundtracks in the first three films create an ambient backdrop to the filmed events,
increasingly incredulous comments by a second observer in the 9/11 footage bring a chill to the
whole installation. Mekas disconnects 9/11 from its defining date, tying it in to other moments of
destruction, those planned, hoped-for, or controlled, to introduce the idea of timelessness and
metaphor in an attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible.
Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in Lithuania and migrated to New York in 1949. He played a central
role in the establishment of the Filmmaker's Cooperative in 1962, the Filmmaker's Cinémathèque
in 1964 and the Anthology Film Archive in 1972. He also launched the magazine Film Culture in
1954 and started writing a weekly column for Village Voice in 1958. In 2005 he represented
Lithuania at the 51st Venice Biennale. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at P.S.1
Contemporary Art Center, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Baltic Art Center Visby, Kunsthaus Zurich,
Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. The Destruction Quartet was developed for the
exhibition Jonas Mekas: Celebration of the small and personal in the times of bigness, at the
Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne and was curated by Liutauras Psibilskis & Lolita
Jablonskiene. The Jonas Mekas Visual Art Center opened on November 10, 2007 in Vilnius,
Lithuania.
Image: The Destruction Quartet 2006, 4 monitor video installation. Edition of 5
For additional information or images please contact Becky or James at 212.577.1201 or
info@jamesfuentes.com.
James Fuentes LLC Contemporary Fine Art
35 St. James Place, New York NYC
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