The short film Futuro – A New Stance for Tomorrow (1998) is part of the exhibition “1000m2 of desire – architecture and sexuality” at Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona in Spain. The exhibition looks at the way Western society has planned, built and imagined spaces for sex from the 18th century to the present day. Curated by Adélaïde de Caters and Rosa Ferré.
Futuro – A New Stance for Tomorrow (1998) is screening at DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival as part of film programs dedicated to Eila Ranta’s (Werning) life-time achievements in promoting documentary film culture in Finland. The event is a double-bill screening with Lasse Naukkarinen’s Artist’s Life (1999).
Wednesday 25 January 2017 at Cinema Orion at 16:00h.
The paper-based work is a companion piece to Taanila’s 2013 video installation My Silence. Here the point of departure is the published script of the feature film My Dinner with André (dir. Louis Malle, 1981). The artist photocopied each page of the book, cut out all the dialogue content using small knives, then re-photocopied the residue on standard office paper. The piece is shown on a wall as a grid of 97 paper sheets.
Additionally Fish Gallery in Helsinki produced an signed edition of 50 copies of page 101 of the work on thicker cardboard material.
Selected shows:
The exhibition Mirrored will be presented in the 2017 edition of the Nordic Pavilion at the 57th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia. Mirrored is a group exhibition featuring works by six artists from different generations: Siri Aurdal, Nina Canell, Charlotte Johannesson, Jumana Manna, Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki, and Mika Taanila. Curator: Mats Stjernstedt.
brief Q&A on Film Reader project by Laura Boxberg
interview by Miisa Pulkkinen in Taiteilija (in Finnish)
Mannerlaatta is broadcasting in Finland on Yle Teema as part of the channel’s annual film festival. The cameraless feature is airing at 16:30h on Saturday 26 November 2016.
link to Yle Teema film festival
link to Tytti Rantanen’s article on Mannerlaatta
Black & White Movies (2013) is a series of 16 photogrammes. These “photographs without a camera” are based on black & white movies from 1924-1995, recorded on VHS home video cassettes, which the artist has collected over the years and then destroyed with specific plot-oriented methods. The residues of the destroyed tapes are making up the photogrammes; they are arranged in a photographic
darkroom on photosensitive material and finally shown as (framed) digital pigment prints. The series makes up an imaginary memory game, unrelated to the visitor’s familiarity with the movies.
One of the cassettes in the series is the French-Italian horror movie Les yeux sans visage (Eyes without a Face) directed by Georges Franju in 1960. “According to what I could remember from the film, I destroyed my own tape containing that film with chloroform,
sulphuric acid, knives and finally, fire. Showing this photogram print in my solo show in St. Louis led into a surprising, bizarre and very fortunate chain of events and correspondence with the next-door neighbor of the film’s young star actress, Edith Scob. As a result, Mrs. Scob – now living in Paris – was kind enough to donate to me the last remains of her once large VHS collection,” tells Taanila. The two-screen video meditation Tapes without Eyes is based on these “Scob-tapes”.
Shows:
Mannerlaatta – the original Finnish language version of Tectonic Plate – is screening as part of The 2nd Pori Film Festival program. The screening takes place on Wednesday 23 November at 16:00 in Promenadikeskus. After the screening Q&A with Mika Taanila.
The screening is followed by Taanila’s talk on cameraless films in the history of moving image. Venue: Bar Jussikka (Yrjönkatu 10), starting at 19:00 (in Finnish)
The cameraless feature film Tectonic Plate is screening six times at Spoutnik art house cinema in Genèva, November 2017. The screening dates are November 9, 14, 16, 22, 23 and 28, every day at 20:30h. Street address; 11 rue de la Coulouvrenière.
In the first screening on November 9, there is an introduction and Q&A with Mika Taanila.
link to Spoutnik program notes + info
balzer projects participates at UNTITLED Miami Beach art fair from 30 November to 4 December 2016, representing works by four artists: Brian Duggan, Nici Jost, David Rikard and Mika Taanila.
