Press release Amsterdam, 23 April 2018
Exhibition: Alex van Warmerdam – L’histoire kaputt
Photo: Creatures of the forest (2017), Alex van Warmerdam
A man lifting a big black thing out of a closet, a composite girl, and creatures of the forest. This summer Eye presents new work by Alex van Warmerdam in an exhibition specially designed for the film museum. L’histoire kaputt is an idiosyncratic solo show in which personages, objects and situations come to life in a mysteriously staged setting, complemented by big screens showing fragments from Van Warmerdam’s films. All elements of the exhibition testify to the down-to-earth imagination and inimitable style of Alex van Warmerdam as a maker of films and works for the stage, as well as a writer and painter.
Alex van Warmerdam – L’histoire kaputt, 10 June — 2 September 2018, Eye Filmmuseum, open daily.
EYE Filmmuseum IJPromenade 1 Marnix van Wijk T. 020 - 5891 405 eyefilm.nl/pers 1031 KT Amsterdam Publiciteitsmanager M. 06 – 2783 2016 [email protected] [email protected] Postbus 37767 1030 BJ Amsterdam
A waiter fed up with his miserable existence vents his anger to the screenwriter who makes him suffer one mishap after another. Abel, already in his thirties but unwilling to grow up, cuts flies with a scissors. A dress in the lead role. A typical new Dutch suburb on the edge of a relentlessly orthogonal forest. A charismatic drifter who cheerfully kidnaps a family.
Alex Van Warmerdam (1952) has directed nine feature films, and all nine reveal the hand of the maker down to the smallest detail. Plot, mise-en-scène and art direction are carefully choreographed, and the narrative from is often unconventional. Violence often erupts and scenarios make deaths a frequent inevitability. The same pursuit of perfect workmanship and darkly comic alienation infuse the exhibition Alex van Warmerdam – L’histoire kaputt.
All new works At the invitation of Eye, the filmmaker, theatre maker, writer and painter has created an exhibition made up of new films, installations and objects. Film, theatre, design and painting come together and illuminate all facets of Van Warmerdam’s creative output.
Composite girl Among the artworks is a big storage tank containing a ‘composite girl’ lying in the undergrowth. At the spot where her head should be is an open book. An aquarium shows a section of a murky ditch. A painting over four metres in length depicts two businessmen floating on a raft out at sea, like a scene cut from a film. Stop motion films show a constantly changing painting, and visitors can take turns to enter a living room and meet the occupants.
Film fragments and cinema screenings Arranged among the works are five big screens showing fragments of Van Warmerdam’s feature films, among them De Noorderlingen (1992), Ober (2006), Borgman (2013) and Schneider vs. Bax (2015). The complete films (mostly 35mm copies from the Eye collection) and restored versions of Abel and De Noorderlingen are being screened in the Eye cinemas. Following the exhibition, this autumn Eye will screen a re-edited version of Grimm (2003).
eyefilm.nl/pers
Publication Accompanying the exhibition is a lavishly illustrated publication made in collaboration with the literary periodical De Gids and Uitgeverij Nieuw Amsterdam. To reflect Van Warmerdam’s idiosyncratic artistry, De Gids has asked writers and poets whose work displays a similar originality to respond to Van Warmerdam’s body of work with free associations and thought experiments. Also included is a selection of Van Warmerdam’s work, ranging from poems and dramatic texts to visual art, film stills, posters and images of his theatre performances.
eyefilm.nl/pers