Film festival at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art – Garage Screen Film Festival from April 14 to May 25, 2019
The Art and Culture Development Foundation under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the “Garage” Museum of Contemporary Art will host the Garage Screen Film Festival in the framework of a pre-opening of the Center for Contemporary Art in Tashkent. The festival program includes five tapes, which will be presented to a wide audience from April 14 to May 25 in the square of the Center for Contemporary Art from 14 April to 25 May.
The film screening program was founded by the “Garage” Museum in 2012 and since then the museum team has been selecting iconic novelties, festival premieres and works of cinema classics to represent a wide range. In 2018 the museum held the first Garage Screen Film Festival, designed to develop cooperation with various regional and foreign cultural institutions and provide free access to knowledge about modern culture to all those who attended. The five selected films, which will be presented in the Center for Contemporary Art, tell the audience about the life of prominent artists and personalities of contemporary art, as well as films about various artistic practices.
The films include: “Poor People: Kabakovs” which is a documentary portrait of the key figures of Moscow conceptualism, i.e. Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, created by Anton Zhelnov; “Basquiat: The Explosion of Reality” which is a picture of Sarah Driver, immersing the spectator in the artistic environment of New York in the 1970 – 1980s; “Kusama: Infinite Worlds” is the story of Heather Lenz about the “galaxy” of one of the most famous contemporary artists; the festival blockbuster by Julian Rosefeldt “Manifesto” starring Cate Blanchett; and also “Cattelan: Be Right Back” which is a documentary about the preparation of the retrospective exhibition of the famous painter Maurizio Cattelan that was titled “All” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2011.
Film screening of “Basquiat: The Explosion of Reality”
The movie is about the biography of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in his youth and at the same time it is a portrait of New York in the 1970s – 1980s, when it was a rebellious “uncombed” city, where empty houses were set on fire to collect insurance money.
The young, unapologetic Basquiat looked like another unsheltered artist with whom anything could happen. Composed of archival footage and interviews with the contemporaries of Basquiat, the film director Sarah Driver, i.e. the wife and colleague of Jim Jarmusch, immerses the viewer in the atmosphere of those years. There are Bohemian parties, the first large–scale hip – hop hangouts and painted graffiti trains in Queens and Bronx. Jean-Michel is the guest of each party, a street artist, marking the New York houses with the tag SAMO (Same Old Shit), and is megalomaniac who comes alive on the screen thanks to the stories of his friends and loved ones.
“Basquiat: the Explosion of Reality”
Directed by Sarah Driver
USA, 2018. 78 min. 16+
Film screening of “Kusama: Infinite Worlds”
Having been an art critic who studied the works of Yei Kusama for a quarter of a century, Heather Lenz debuted her directing talents in the film “Kusama: Infinite Worlds.” It is a portrait of the famous Japanese artist Kusama, and was approved and supported by the artist herself.
Since childhood in which suffers from hallucinations, Kusama sees the world as a repeating pattern which is reflected in most of her works, consisting of dots and other patterns. The artist also perceives herself as a point in the infinite universe, and sees her main task to be the reflection of personal experience and an attempt to transform society through art. “Infinite Worlds” demonstrates exactly this connection between the biography of Kusama and the evolution of social consciousness.
The artist spent her youth in patriarchal Japan, and the first artistic steps she had to make was in the predominantly men's art–world of the United States in the 1960s. Her public actions in support of women and the LGBT community have cast her image as a troublemaker, and in the 1980s Kusama was almost forgotten. However, after a series of retrospectives and her participation in the Venice Biennale, she gained the status of a world–renowned artist whose works have since sold for soaring prices. The film is a participant in the competitive film festivals Sundance (2018) and TIFF (2018).
“Kusama: Infinite Worlds”
Directed by Heather Lenz
USA, 2018. 78 min. 16+
Film screening of “Poor People Kabakovs”
On the 85th birthday of Ilya Kabakov, the “Garage” Museum of Contemporary Art prepared a documentary dedicated to the life and creativity of the classics of Russian contemporary art Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, with a retrospective exhibition on the history of the museum which began 10 years ago.
In “Poor People” Ilya Kabakov tells about the origins of his work, i.e. the tragic fate of his mother, who influenced the outlook and the subsequent formation of the artist. Together with his wife and co-author Emilia, he discusses unofficial art in the USSR and the emergence of Moscow conceptualism, his emigration to Europe and the United States, and about his “30-year exhibition of famine” for which he received worldwide recognition (although Kabakov refused to make public appearances in the Soviet Union after he became famous). Today his works are included in the collections of the leading museums of the world, including the Museum of Modern Art MOMA (New York); the National Museum of Modern Art, i.e., the Center Georges Pompidou (Paris); and Kunsthalle Hamburg.
The filming took place in 2017 – 2018 in the home of the artists on Long Island (USA) and in St. Petersburg. The film also used previously unpublished family photos and videos and documents from the archive of the “Garage” Museum. The author of the film is a former journalist and TV presenter Anton Zhelnov, who created jointly with Nikolay Kartozii the documentaries “Brodsky is not a poet” and “Sasha Sokolov: Last Russian Writer”.
Film screening of “Cattelan: Be Right Back”
The film focuses on the preparation of the retrospective exhibition of the famous painter Maurizio Cattelan titled “All” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2011.
Maurizio Cattelan is known for his ambiguous installations, including the sculpture of the Pope of Rome struck by a meteorite (“The Ninth Hour”, 1999), and the reduced figure of the kneeling Adolf Hitler (“He”, 2001). These works have often become the subject of turbulent discussions both in professional environments and in the pages of tabloids. Among the participants in making the film are relatives of the artist, his former girlfriends, art critics, gallerists and curators, including the artistic director of the New Museum in New York Massimiliano Joni, i.e., a close friend of Cattelan and a participant in many shared artistic adventures. The title of the film refers to the first personal exhibition of Cattelan, who could not think of any artwork to complete, and so simply closed the gallery and hung on it a sign saying: “Be Right Back”.
The film is a participant in the festival “Tribeca” (New York, 2016) and the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival CPH: DOX (2017).
“Cattelan: Be Right Back”
Directed by Maura Axelrod
USA, 2016. 95 min. 18+
Film screening of “Manifesto”
A witty collage of 13 episodes, each featuring Cate Blanchett, in which she reads the main artistic manifestos of the XX century, transforming into different characters.
Taking place in vernissage and funerals, family dinners and dumps, a school classroom and punk party, these are the sites where the texts of Oldenburg Class, Yvonne Rainer, Casimir Malevich, Andre Breton, Zola Levitt, Jim Jarmusch, Lars von Trier and other artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers expressed their understanding of time, art and the surrounding world in manifestos.
“Manifesto” is a full–length film version of the eponymous multichannel video installation by Julian Rosefeldt, in which he confronts opposites: acting improvisation and written text. He is the winner of an “Oscar” prize and has created works of artistic avant–garde subject matter.
The world premiere of the film version “Manifesto” took place at the Sundance festival (2017).
“Manifesto”
Directed by Julian Rosefeldt
Australia, Germany, 2016. 95 min. 16+
Admission to the film screenings is free of charge, by prior registration on the website of the Center for Contemporary Art www.ccat.oz and the link: //forms.gle/nNBtgZhayFfh7QUZ9