Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier BABETTE MANGOLTE

Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier BABETTE MANGOLTE Booklet #Mangolte 18/12 2016 – 12/2 2017 www.kunsthallewien.at Babette Mangolte In response to which films have influenced her the most, she cites I = EYE Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929) and Michael Snow’s Babette Mangolte (*1941) is an Wavelength (1967): “These two films icon of international experimental literally changed my life. The first cinema. From the beginning, her one made me decide to become a early interests focused on the cinematographer, and the desire documentation of the New York art, to see the second one led me to dance, and theatre scene of the New York, where I settled down and 1970s, and above all, on performance eventually made my films.” 1 art. The adaptation of dance and choreography for the media of Babette Mangolte was the film and photography – and the cinematographer for Chantal concomitant question regarding the Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman (1975) and changes this transfer has on an event News From Home (1977), and also for based on the live experience – play Yvonne Rainer’s Lives of Performers a central role in her work. (1972) and Film about a Woman Who... (1974). In 1975, she completed her I = EYE not only presents an array first film What Maisie Knew, which of Mangolte’s film and photo works won the “Prix de la Lumière” at the from the 1970s, but also more Toulon Film Festival in the same year. recent projects, which explore the Subsequently, other significant films historicisation of performance from her filmography include The art, and the differences between Camera: Je or La Camera: I (1977), perceptions of contemporaneity The Cold Eye (My Darling, Be Careful) past and present, as well as (1980), The Sky on Location (1982), conceptualizations of time. All works Visible Cities (1991), and Four Pieces are defined by a visual form that by Morris (1993). innovatively incorporates and reflects on a wide array of influences from Based on Mangolte’s fundamental silent and American experimental film interest in the subjective camera, to feminist film theory. the exhibition at the Kunsthalle Wien follows an experimental approach Babette Mangolte discovered her employing space and time as media. love for cinema in 1960 with the Viewing time, the relation between Nouvelle Vague. In 1964, she was photograph and film, the translation the first woman to be accepted at from one medium to another, and Louis Lumière’s École Nationale the resulting changes in the filmed or de la Photographie et de la photographed event are further crucial Cinématographie in Noisy-le-Grand topics of inquiry. I = EYE is centred near Paris. In 1970, her interest in around film sequences, which are experimental works inspired her to interrupted by acoustic interventions travel to the USA, where she became and projected onto four separate acquainted with the contemporary screens to create a both cinematic avant-garde scene in New York. and choreographic installation. 1 On a comprehensive level, this form Documentation of artistic practice, New York) exemplifies her depiction by sticking stills from her film of presentation enables one “to look at filmic approaches to performances, of complex choreographies. The Camera: Je or La Camera: I what it means to look.”2 The fact that studies of contemporary dance, and onto the faces of the cards. Mangolte’s films reflect the temporal reflections on the way in which the The connections between the separate The slide projection of a selection aspect of the performance and camera claims reality and develops photographs – the possibility of of photographs was also inspired by translate this experience into cinematic its own temporality while filming creating sequences and the resulting the artist’s interest in transferring time is also reflected in the installation movements and people, interchange changes in meaning – is another one medium to another. In this case, which, in a sense, “performs” the films in this presentation. central theme in Mangolte’s oeuvre. the perception of time and movement in their complete length. For the exhibition, she developed are the key aspects. One projection Together, the twelve films provide an Touching IV, an installation consisting shows various photographs from One of the screens shows a variation all-embracing insight into Mangolte’s of a large table with a display of digital plays and performances, while of films and excerpts. These cinematic practice which focuses on prints from her archive of theatre another is dedicated to the relation projections are interspersed with the reflection of the subjective view photographs. Visitors are invited to between colour photography and extracts from soundtracks derived of the camera as opposed to tradi- touch, compare, and rearrange the painting, between fragmented from a selection of films, sound tional identification with the actors. pictures in varying formats, which viewing and reproduction. collages, and Mangolte’s reflections The installation itself also breaks are very different from her photos of on her filmic practice. While the with the established artistic practice dances and performances. Landscapes and History (1997), alternating languages in her films of simultaneously projecting several a series of colour photographs allude to the process of translation, films in one space: instead, all works The focus in this selection is on the artist took in 1986, illustrates the the relation between language, are shown consecutively. However, Richard Foreman’s Ontological- emptiness and vastness of American sound, and imagination defines the since the entire loop is over six hours, Hysteric Theater, its actors, landscapes: a storm over the Grand acoustic level. a complete viewing would be chal- the costumes and sets, and on Canyon, a stormy sky in Montana, lenging. In its totality, the exhibition the performer Stuart Sherman, who a lake in Colorado, a dark sky during The sequence of films were itself resembles a choreography. promoted an abstract performative a sunset in Utah, a hill in the Mojave choreographed especially for the style. In theater, the actor’s Desert. These shots show landscapes exhibition. Beginning with storm The film and sound montage is sup- expression is essential and often of epic dimensions which seem to noises from Mangolte’s film Roof plemented by film stills. These images determines the shooting of a photo. reflect a different concept of time. Piece on the High Line (2011/2012), derive from particular films shown In contrast to the photographs of the score continues with a scene projected on the walls. Spotlights dances and performances, most 1. Mangolte, Babette. “Life in from What Maisie Knew (1975). illuminate them for brief moments, thus of the scenes in Foreman’s pieces Film: Babette Mangolte,” Frieze A collaged soundtrack leads to incorporating them as one part of the full confront one group of actors with Magazine, Issue 117 (September the film (Now) or Maintenant entre performative presentation. another, thus providing a narrative 2008): 38-39. parenthèses (1976), which shows the that enables a connection between activation of various objects but also Photographs of performances by the pictures. Although they represent 2. Mangolte, Babette. “Artist alludes to the temporal structure Trisha Brown and Lucinda Childs different productions, the prints on Statement,” 2013. Features of the medium of film: in the light of illustrate Mangolte’s longstanding the table share common features. in forthcoming book, Babette the projector, events filmed in the dedication to modern dance. Over While examining and rearranging the Mangolte: Selected Writings, past are enlivened in the present. many years, she devoted herself copies, viewers are invited to discover published by Sternberg Press. The installation also includes Water to capturing the one moment that subtle details in the variations. Motor, Steve Paxton at Dia:Beacon, represents the whole movement, The Camera: Je or La Camera: I, and to the relation between time, The transfer of a filmic image to a Patricia Patterson Paintings, Edward space, and image. In this collection photograph and the correspondence Krasiński’s Studio, Visible Cities, of photographic documentation, between the individual pictures Yvonne with Tape, Four Pieces by the famous shots of Trisha Brown’s provides the basis for Play Card Set Morris, and Roof Piece on the High Roof Piece from 1973 (a performance from 1978. For this work, Mangolte Line and Je, Nous, I or Eye, Us. involving dancers on the rooftops of altered a set of playing cards 2 3 Babette Mangolte, Arizona film still Four Pieces by Morris, 1993, © Babette Mangolte, Courtesy of the artist and Broadway 1602 Uptown & Harlem, New York Babette Mangolte, Diptych “Jimi” from “The Camera: Je, La Camera: I”, 1977, © Babette Mangolte, Babette Mangolte, Diptych “Stuart” from “The Camera: Je, La Camera: I”, 1977, © Babette Mangolte, Courtesy of the artist and Broadway 1602 Uptown & Harlem, New York Courtesy of the artist and Broadway 1602 Uptown & Harlem, New York Babette Mangolte, Robert Whitman’s Prune Flat, 1965 (Photo from reconstruction in 1976), © Babette Mangolte, Courtesy of the artist and Broadway 1602 Uptown & Harlem, New York Babette Mangolte, film still Edward Krasiński´s Studio, 2012, © Babette Mangolte, Courtesy of the artist and Broadway 1602 Uptown & Harlem, New York Babette Mangolte, film still The Camera: Je or La Camera: I, 1977, © Babette Mangolte, Courtesy of the artist and Broadway 1602 Uptown & Harlem, New York Babette Mangolte, Site film still from Four Pieces by Morris, 1993, © Babette Mangolte, Courtesy of the artist and Broadway 1602 Uptown & Harlem, New York Babette Mangolte, film still Visible Cities, 1991, © Babette Mangolte, Courtesy of the artist and Broadway 1602 Uptown & Harlem, New York Films It is as though we were watching ourselves being photographed, What Maisie Knew photographed by the screen we are 1975, 16mm, b/w, 58 min. looking at. © Babette Mangolte, Courtesy of the artist and Broadway 1602 Uptown & Water Motor Harlem, New York 1978, 16mm, b/w, 7 min.

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