Part 1:
Renzo Martens
Artur Żmijewski
Frederick Wiseman
Part 2:
The Atlas Group
François Bucher
Dani Marti
Artur Żmijewski
When artists site their practice within the fabric of social relations, documentary modes often play a central role in mediating events and experiences. Though the resulting material often bears a close resemblance to ethnographic mapping, investigative journalism or even community work, in contrast to the strict ethical codes to which these disciplines adhere many of today’s artists operate in somewhat murkier waters. Working outside – or even deliberately corrupting – accepted conventions and frameworks, the artists participating in this two-part exhibition find alternative means to engage with social realities in situations of war, sex and political urgency.
A series of three week-long presentations of documentary films that interrogate the operations and effects of power launched The Ethics of Encounter programme. Returning to the format of a group exhibition, Part 2 included photography and video works by five artists who place storytelling at the heart of their practice. Re-imagining the format of the first person interview, they move from the grainy hostage-tape aesthetic adopted by The Atlas Group to Dani Marti’s intimate post-coital portraits, creating captivating, and occasionally deeply disturbing, narratives. Whether folding fact into fiction or constructing complex games and experiments, these reality driven practices produce new types of knowledge and challenge the coordinates by which we live.
With over two-and-a-half-hours worth of video material this exhibition was not designed to be experienced in one visit. Instead we hoped that visitors would keep returning over time to consider why these artists adopt strategies which brush against the grain of socially-engaged or community art to adopt a set of approaches whereby subjects are manipulated, participants used and viewers find themselves deceived.
Producer: Cheryl Connell
AV: Evan Thomas
Installation: Lindsey Hamilton
Use the arrows below to scroll through the exhibition slideshow.
