Exhibition – Film Implosion

 Experiments in Swiss Cinema and Moving Images 

• Opening at Medrar for Contemporary Art: Thursday 8 February, 7pm, till 15 March 2018
  Exhibition is open daily from 3pm until 9pm, except Fridays.
• Presentation by François Bovier and Adeena Mey of films by Robert Beavers & Gregory Markopoulos at Cimatheque club: 7pm, Friday 9th of February.
• Open conversation with artist Urs Breitenstein at Medrar and screening his personal work and collection of works by Werner von Mutzenbecher & André Lehmann: 7pm, Saturday 10th of February.
• Closing event with special screening of Geschichte der Nacht, (1978) in the presence of it’s director Clemens Klopfenstein at Cimatheque club: 7pm, 15th of March.

Film Implosion! is an exhibition dedicated to Swiss experimental cinema. It sheds light on a less known aspect of the country’s art history by presenting a panorama of genres and practices within the mediums of film and video from the 1960ʼs until today. Artists challenge the traditional codes of cinema through formal interventions directly on the celluloid, unconventional documentaries, political, feminist, animated, and fiction films.

Film Implosion! outlines the multiple discourses and viewpoints that surface from these filmic and para-filmic productions by offering two types of readings that echo one another. It presents audiences with different investigative directions around the artwork with the historical and critical distance provided by research, as well as an experience of the unique atmosphere of expanded cinema’s festive events in the 1960’s – a time when films were collectively projected during concerts or performances, far from the codes of classical “movie screening.”

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pro Helvetia Cairo, Medrar for Contemporary Art presents a version of the exhibition, curated by François Bovier and Adeena Mey, which highlights comparable ways of addressing the primary structures of film in its rough form, by artists and filmmakers alike. It recalls the fundamentals of video art language that we know today, traced back to earlier expressive forms against the conventions of classical cinema. Ranging from abstract animation to collage practices and documentary mode, the featured works share a desire to deconstruct the conventions of filmic language and reinvent representation. After focusing for several years on the realm of video art, Medrar steps closer to the worlds of avant-garde and experimental film, blurring the traditional medium based distinction of moving image experimentation.

Film Implosion was first shown at Fri Art Kunsthalle (Fribourg, Switzerland) from November 2015 to February 2016, followed by a re-run at the Museum für Gestaltung (Zurich, Switzerland) in February–April 2017. The exhibition was initially curated by François Bovier and Balthazar Lovay, taking as its starting point a research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and conducted by the Zurich University of the arts (with Thomas Schärer and Fred Truniger) and the University of Lausanne (with François Bovier and Adeena Mey). The first version of this exhibition intended to show the diversity and scattering of the experimental and artists’ films scenes in Switzerland.

Team

Baltazar Lovay
Gelan Hafny
Dia Hamed
Mohamed Allam
Mido Sadek

Special Thanks to

Erich Langyar
Amira El-Masry
Ors Brighstein
Patrick Signaler (Okta Films)
Dalia Sulieman
Sara Allam
Christine Serdali (Vmac)
Clemens Klopvenstein
Maged Nader
Marion Bocour
Maxa Tsolar
Marwa BenHalim
Mai Elwakil
Nahla Suleiman
Yasmine Desouki