Peter Kubelka is a historical figure of independent cinema. He has been invited in April 2017 by the Centre Pompidou for a cycle of conferences on his cinema and the premiere French presentation of his latest film "Monument Film".
Peter Kubelka (1934 -), who was commissioned by Pontus Hultèn to design the first exhibition dedicated to avant-garde and experimental cinema at the Centre Pompidou, sketched the foundations of a renewed history of cinema. A matrix of the film collection of the Centre Pompidou, "A History of Cinema (1976-1977)" is marked by the personality of the Austrian artist, an unavoidable figure of cinematographic modernity in the 20th century, and by the formal radicality of his work.
Programme:
Wednesday, 12 April 2017Homage to Peter Kubelka: Monument FilmPeter Kubelka presents his latest work, Monument Film, a monumental projection synthesizing the work of a lifetime: sixty years spent making the film a work of art in its own right. In 1960, Peter Kubelka finalized his film Arnulf Rainer (1958-1960) with which he formulated one of the purest expressions of cinematographic art reduced to its elementary components: light, darkness, silence and white noise. Directed at about fifty years apart as a response to this seminal gesture of the artist, Antiphon (2012) proceeds from an inversion of the visual and sound polarities of Arnulf Rainer. Presented in the last work of Peter Kubelka, Monument Film, the presentation of these two films can be seen through their projection performed with two 35mm projectors and their exhibition in the form of a film ribbon in the gallery's rails. Deploying itself through these two modalities of exhibition of the film, Monument Film constitutes an experiment of the renewed film where, according to the logic of possible permutations, the temporality and the materiality of the cinema are confused
- Peter Kubelka, Monument Film, 2012, 35mm (double projection), b&w., Sound, 25min.
The premiere of Monument Film will be preceded by a presentation by Peter Kubelka (in French)
Friday 14 April 2017Homage to Peter Kubelka: A workSixty years separate the first work of Peter Kubelka Mosaik im Vertrauen (1954-1955) from his last Antiphon (2012). As an unavoidable figure in the history of cinema and the arts in the 20th century, the Austrian artist's work revolutionized the movement of moving images by the precision of his plastic research and his method of mathematics and Music its own logic of composition. Equivalent to one hour of projection, all of his realizations on silver supports - eight films made in 35mm and 16mm - constitutes to this day one of the most singular expressions of cinematographic art.
Presented by Peter Kubelka (in French)
- Mosaik im Vertrauen, 1954-1955, 35mm, b&w./colour., Sound, 16.30min.- Adebar, 1956-1957, 35mm, b&w, Sound, 1.09min.- Schwechater, 1957-1958, b&w./colour, Sound, 1min.- Arnulf Rainer, 1958-1960, 35mm, b&w, Sound, 6.14min.- Unsere Afrikareise, 1961-1966, 16mm, colour, sound, 12.13min.- Pause, 1977, 16mm, colour, sound, 12.30min.- Dichtung und Wahrheit, 1996-2003, 35mm, colour, sound, 13min.- Antiphon, 2012, 35mm, b&w, Sound, 6.14min.
Saturday, April 15, 2017Homage to Peter Kubelka: A portrait Fragments of Kubelka (2012), presented at the Centre Pompidou's homage to Peter Kubelka (12-16 April 2017), provides an exhaustive portrait of the artist's work, exploring both his work as a filmmaker , A theoretician, an architect, a collector, or an ardent defender of cooking as the first art. Produced over several years by Austrian documentary filmmaker Martina Kudlácek, this feature-length film offers an unprecedented look at the prolific artistic and conceptual production of Peter Kubelka. Fragments of Kubelka, at the crossroads between the documentary portrait and the cinematographic essay, invites us, not without complicity, into the intimacy of an artist whose thought has profoundly influenced the history of the arts and cinema.
The cinema of Kubelka is like a piece of crystal, or another object of nature: it does not resemble what has been produced by man. One could easily imagine that it could belong to the organic treasures of nature. Jonas Mekas.
Sunday, April 16, 2017Homage to Peter Kubelka: A visit to the museum On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Center Pompidou and its seminal exposition Une Histoire du Cinéma (1976-1977), the National Museum of Modern Art invites Peter Kubelka to cover the spaces of the modern collections (5th floor) for a conference in movement. A seasoned observer and commentator on the history of the arts and cinema, the artist invites us to reconsider the position of the film within the 20th century system of artistic productions. From the darkness of the cinemas to the open spaces of the exhibitions, Peter Kubelka comments on the future of the film and the museum in the era of dematerialisation of analog media.
Conference in French (duration 1h00-1h30)
Meeting with Peter Kubelka on the occasion of the publication of the book Chez Peter / At Peter's, published by Paris Experimental, 2017Thursday, April 13 at 6:30 pm:Re:voir / Film Gallery43, rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, 75010 Paris