Film Between Black Box and White Cube - Part 1

Today there is a growing tendency for film and media artists to exhibit their works in the context of museums and galleries, thus turning away from the cinema and focusing their attention on the art market. Especially affected by these changes - because of its affinity with art - is the short film genre...

 

The retreat of these artists from the classical cinema environment is taking place at a time when art cinemas are dwindling, meaning there are fewer and fewer venues able to present the artists' work on screen.

 

Public film funding institutions increasingly focus on commercial criteria, often neglecting the promotion of film as art, both with regard to production requirements and screening opportunities. One hardly dare speak of film art in this context, this term having long since been devalued as a catchall for film material deemed 'culturally highbrow'.

 

Film criticism and art theory each have their own particular difficulties dealing with the new developments. Art theory is moving away from the concept of 'visual arts', which can hardly do justice to the moving image, much less to the phenomenon of cinema. And film criticism – which might well be expected to step in and take a stand here – remains conspicuously silent or has perhaps been squelched on the subject of film as art by the pressure of the mainstream publication market. Any discourse on this theme takes place only rarely.

 

Arts institutions by contrast are extremely receptive to the moving image and welcome artists working in audio-visual media with open arms. At the same time, the distance between film artists and established institutions of the arts is closing rapidly. During the 60's and 70's, avant-garde filmmakers working outside of the institution of bourgeois cinema, while also spurning the bourgeois art world, readily chimed in with critics of the institutionalisation of art (the art market, museums, etc.). In the meantime, however, these institutions themselves have taken up this 'institutional critique', incorporating it into their own philosophy and moulding it to shape their own legitimation, thereby draining it of its power. Moreover, the critical dynamics of this issue have since been defused and have more or less segued into a discussion on 'site specificity'. This in turn does not affect the art market as long as an artwork is in a form that can be packaged and sold. Where and when which film can or may be screened is not the principal question today – it's now only a question of context.

 

The ones with the most to lose in this conflict are precisely those cinemas and film festivals who design their programmes with the highest artistic ideals in mind and who take the theme of film as art seriously.

 

 

Filmmakers Between Art and Cinema – Historical Movements at Cross-Purposes

 

Artists who make films have been around as long as the cinema itself. But the relationship between art and cinema has always been complex, if not downright confusing. Film and art were still strongly interrelated in the work of the avant-garde artists of the 1920's (for example, Man Ray, Léger, Duchamp, and Eggeling).

However, works on film produced by the post-war modernists, who were for the most part more at home in the art context, didn't make it into the cinema and remained largely unknown, practically invisible to the public at large (for example, films by Marcel Broodthaers, Mauricio Kagel, Richard Serra, and Robert Smithson).

The avant-garde filmmakers of the 60's and 70's did have a vested interest in the fine arts in connection with their purist concept of 'film as film', but at the same time they distanced themselves vehemently from the institution of art and from the art market. By contrast, artists producing works on film during the 80's, quite often painters, turned not to the 'alternative cinema', but headed for Hollywood instead (for example, Julian Schnabel).

Following in the footsteps of video-artist precursors, such as Bill Viola, but also in response to the work of other artists who made use of cinematic imagery (for example, Cindy Sherman), cinema rose to the status of a general reference system for the art of the 90's. With their projections and installations, younger artists such as Doug Aitken, Steve McQueen, Tony Oursler, Pipilotti Rist, Sam Taylor-Wood, Jane and Louise Wilson (all born in the second half of the 1960's) met with success at major art trade shows, competitions and exhibitions. It must be pointed out here, though, that these works are usually not genuine films in the narrow sense, but rather multimedia image worlds, which, with the help of video beamers and large projections, take on something of the power and impact of the cinema. Cinematic gestures and tropes are incorporated, but not necessarily subject to any further filmic development. These artists cannot be lost to cinema or film since they were never anchored there in the first place.

The current young generation of avant-garde filmmakers is another matter entirely. They have realised that the cinema is no longer the only 'natural' venue for the exhibition of films and that the art scene is taking a lively interest in their work. The most successful here are the filmmakers whose past film works had already responded to themes and needs in the current arts scene. These are especially filmmakers who use imagery quoting or harking back to the icons of film history, either in the manner of a compilation as done by Matthias Müller or sculpturally, as in the work of Douglas Gordon.

 

 

Film in the White Cube

 

Through the development of video technology, as mediated by video art, it first became possible for museums and galleries to incorporate moving images into everyday exhibitions. Everyone surely remembers the way museums dealt with this in practice in the early days: a television monitor placed seemingly carelessly in the least attractive, darkest corner possible, with a guard stopping by from time to time to rewind the tape. By now it's customary for every self-respecting art gallery to have its own media room. But even this usually consists of a bare room, at best painted grey and darkened by curtains, in which images are projected via video beam onto a whitewashed wall. A lack of seating is also typical, or at the most a few seats provided for viewing the video documentation accompanying the museum's educational offerings. The museum visitor is usually forced to encounter the exhibited film as a work of art from a standing position. This situation has improved considerably during the last ten years, and one could observe with some irony that, at least in the larger exhibition spaces, plywood boxes have become customary as seating. But even at the brand new Tate Modern, the exhibition practices described here continue to prevail: there, a Svankmajer film, pixelised beyond recognition, is thrown onto the wall of a mini white cube – the museum equivalent of a shoebox-sized cinema.

Exhibition facilities in private galleries are usually even more spartan than in the public galleries and art museums. Films and videos are often 'exhibited' there on monitors in full daylight or bright artificial light.

 

Under these circumstances, it is at least mildly surprising that museums and galleries are more attractive to many filmmakers than classic screen presentation at the cinema or at festivals, even for those who don't come directly from an art-world context. For, in most cases, filmmakers have to decide at some point whether they want their works to be sold exclusively by galleries or released non-exclusively on the film scene. At present most filmmakers try to circumvent this conflict by producing different versions of their work, often on different media. At least among artists with a genuine film background, there is a tendency to release their works in both a temporally based single-screen /one channel version as well as a spatially oriented, sculpturally structured multi-screen version. This makes it possible to present the work either on a screen or single monitor, or in exhibition spaces (as an 'installation'). Perhaps it is only a question of time before such filmmakers give up making a cinema version at all, since legal and licensing issues inevitably lead to a conflict with art market requirements.

 

 

Art Market Paradoxes

 

The art market is based on dealing in unique objects. Films – understood here once more in the broadest sense of the term – are not unique objects. Whether on celluloid, video or even digital media, films are eminently reproducible. Their duplication can only be prevented, if at all, through formal legal means. (While sharing ideas with me on this topic, Matthias Müller indirectly brought a curious fact to my attention: a great many filmmakers rooted in an art context work with ideas or put to use material from cinematic films, which they – justifiably – regard as mass media in the 'public domain', whereas their own works are 'protected' by the art market from just such public circulation and reproduction).

Unlike painting, sculpture or even reproducible photography, films simply don't have an object character. Any attempt to artificially revalue the medium on which the film is recorded as the unique 'tangible' object that constitutes the film itself leads to strange absurdities. For instance, a few years ago a prominent German video art distributor packaged cheap plastic VHS tapes in costly collectors' boxes and offered them for sale at ridiculously high prices. And an American video artist tackled the problem by having his thumbprint embossed on the plastic surface of his video tapes ... But, from an ironic standpoint, one might ask, as Bj?rn Melhus wrote me from New York: »When will the first unique music CD be sold at an art auction for 200,000 dollars?«.

Another paradox is that, the more films are exposed to the public, the more they drop in value. While the cinema system is based on film prints being shown as often as possible to as many audiences as possible, the art market attempts to artificially limit the visibility of films in order to raise their worth, and thus their price.

More or less as a side effect, this effectively hinders the possibility of a halfway public discourse and a productive share in the development of film art and the 'visual arts', since without a copy there is no way of representing a film, with its temporal and acoustical dimensions, no way of capturing its ideas and conception as a basis for discussion. »This is of course a problematic development, that, in contrast with painting or photography, there is no secondary media for film, such as printed reproductions of a work in catalogues or books that are available to the general public«, in the words of Bj?rn Melhus.

Michael Mazi?re (London) adds: «The big commercial galleries make editions of 3 which are bought and never seen. They make the artist and the galleries a fortune and get a lot of press but they are not seen by the general public.»

This not only causes problems for filmmakers, who are interested in an artistic confrontation with the public, but also for galleries, which are dependent upon public promotion. Most gallery owners have not yet found any answers to this dilemma.

(p.s. While researching this article, I asked about a dozen gallery owners for their comments on this topic and didn't receive one reply! Furthermore, when, on the occasion of Isaac Julien's nomination for the Turner Prize, I requested a thumbnail JPG image from Julien's film "The Long Road to Mazatlán" for this magazine, the Tate Britain at least pointed out that they did not have the necessary rights to the image, but I didn't get even so much as a negative response from the rights-holding Victoria Miro Gallery. Hardly anyone will actually have a chance to see the film itself, unless they happen to be in the right cultural centre at the time the film is being exhibited there).

 

Michael Mazi?re sees here a missed opportunity for the film scene to launch a counter-offensive: «Single-screen work needs much more marketing and promotion if it is to cater to film/video artists - we need organisations that will also release work on DVD, reach a wider audience and believe in the work. There is far too much humility in the cinema circuit and not enough confidence in the value of the work.»

 

Nevertheless, the art market continues to help itself to works on film, and more and more filmmakers are signing on to be represented by galleries -- even at the risk that the limited editions of their work might disappear forever in some collector's cellar! At the latest, once they're sold, these works are then lost to the public and unattainable for the cinema or for film festivals.

Must filmmakers do without a viewing public in the future, and the public go without film art?

 

 

To be continued ...

 

We're going to continue to explore this topic further! In the next issue we will examine the question of the advantages (including economic ones) for filmmakers on the art market and pursue the question of whether or not there are any opportunities for cooperation between the art market and cinema or even a 'third space' (Michael Mazi?re). Last but not least, statements and comments on this topic received in the meantime will be reflected more strongly in future issues of the magazine.

 

With many thanks to everyone who took the time to reply to my questions, especially Rudolf Frieling, Michael Mazi?re, Bj?rn Melhus, Matthias Müller and Angela Zumpe. And thanks in advance to all those who have not had time to respond yet: Matthias Arndt (Galerie Arndt & Partner), Stefanie Schulte Strathaus (Arsenal, Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek) and Bea de Visser (Rotterdam).

 

Reinhard W. Wolf

 

 

 

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FURTHER QUESTIONS ON THE TOPIC – TO STIMULATE DISCUSSION!

 

Is cinema no longer a place where film artists feel at home?

Because cinemas do not take care of (contemporary) film art anymore? Because cinemas can no longer provide an audience for such work?

Which experiences and expectations do Kinomacher (cinema curators) and festival curators have with regard to these issues?

 

Do museums and galleries provide a better and greater public (quantitatively and /or qualitatively)?

Do museums and galleries have a more attentive and sensitive audience?

Are museum patrons and/or gallery clients prepared to adequately perceive works that have a given temporal and fixed chronological structure – with a beginning and an end?

 

Do museum curators have sufficient experience in handling the medium of film?

 

Is the art scene corrupting film? And is Hollywood at least honest about its intentions in approaching film whereas this might not be true of curators? (Stan Brakhage in a discussion at the Rotterdam Film Festival 2002)

 

Are museums and galleries capable of presenting film art that is not conceived as a spatial installation in a technically suitable way?

How do museums and galleries solve the problem with installations that the work is often 'virtual/immaterial' (for example, stored on a digital medium) and can only be realised in a site-specific hardware environment? Is the hardware part of the work of art? Is it sold together with the work? Does the artwork lose its value when the hardware is outdated and/or no longer available?

 

Should, as an alternative, cinemas and film festivals extend their concepts to encompass the exhibition sector, and adapt their technical facilities to allow presentations beyond the scope of the screen and the black box?

 

What do these trends mean for the distribution or trade in film and media art? Will art agencies and galleries replace self-representation and distribution in the future? Is this new sales structure stable enough? Isn't it an incalculable risk to grant exclusive rights for a film to a single agent?

 

Does it make (economic) sense for galleries to offer works for sale that are not unique objects, for which possible editions/reproductions can be limited only by artificial measures? Which problems arise under these circumstances and how do galleries deal with them? Is it possible to find clients interested in buying a work that is, by definition, a 'mass medium' and that can perhaps be easily copied without loss of quality?

 

Do filmmakers tend to be drawn to the art market for economic reasons? Which ones? Changes in public funding for culture? Better profits for the artists/producers?

 

What influences does the art market possibly exert on the aesthetics of artistic films?

 

 

APPENDIX

 

A short, open list of filmmakers whose works are represented by galleries, and of galleries that represent film art:

 

303 Gallery,

Anthony d'Offay Gallery,

Anthony Reynolds Gallery,

Arndt & Partner,

Artangel,

Galerie Asbaek,

Galerie Barbara Thumm

Galerie Chantal Crousel,

Galerie Daniel Buchholz,

Galerie Hauser & Wirth

Galerie Volker Diehl,

Galérie Yvon Lambert,

Gladstone Gallery,

Numark Gallery

Schaper Sundberg Galleri,

Victoria Miro Gallery,

White Cube Gallery,

 

 

Ahtila, Eija-Lisa

Aitken, Doug

Akerman, Chantal

Baldessari, Joe

Bradley, Slater

Breuning, Olaf

Calle, Sophie

Cunningham, Chris

Emin, Tracey

Hill, Gary

Julien, Isaac

Kentridge, William

McQueen, Steve

Müller, Matthias

Neshat, Shirin

Olofsson, Anne?

Rainer, Yvonne

Rist, Pipilotti

T.J. Wilcox,

Taylor-Wood, Sam

Wall, Jeff