Press Release INDEX 1.- Exhibition details and credits ............................................................... 3 2.- Introduction ........................................................................................... 4 3.- Exhibition texts ...................................................................................... 6 4.- Programme of side events ................................................................... 8 5.- Catalogue ............................................................................................. 13 6.- Filmmakers’ bios ................................................................................. 15 7.- Curator’s bio ........................................................................................ 17 8.- General information ............................................................................ 18 A production of: Sponsored by: With the support of: 2 1.- EXHIBITION DETAILS AND CREDITS «Metamorphosis. Fantasy Visions in Starewitch, Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers» is a production of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) and La Casa Encendida Fundación Caja Madrid. The exhibition will at the CCCB from 25th March to 7th September 2014 and La Casa Encendida from 2nd October 2014 to 11th January 2015. PROJECT DIRECTOR Rosa Ferré CURATOR Carolina López Caballero ADVISOR Andrés Hispano CURATOR’S ASSISTANT AND COORDINATOR Miquel Nogués EXHIBITION DESIGN Estudi Francesc Pons GRAPHIC DESIGN Mario Eskenazi Dani Rubio ACTIVITIES COORDINATOR Anna Escoda AUDIOVISUALS Documentation: Gloria Vilches, with the assistance of Laura Rius Editing: José Antonio Soria Installation: CCCB Audiovisuals Department PRODUCTION AND ASSEMBLY COORDINATORS CCCB Exhibitions Service CCCB Production and Assembly Unit REGISTRY Registry and Conservation Unit ASSEMBLY OF THE EXHIBITION Torrecilla Espais LIGHTING CCCB Production and Assembly Unit TRANSPORT Feltrero División Arte INSURANCE Hiscox Europe Underwriting And the support of the External Resources and Information Service, Administration and General Services, and the CCCB Documentation and Debate Centre. 3 2.- INTRODUCTION «Metamorphosis. Fantasy Visions in Starewitch, Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers» Starewitch Švankmajer Quay Brothers Fantasy as a redoubt of absolute freedom arrives at the CCCB with Starewitch, Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers, key figures in animated movie-making, whose work is presented in depth here for the first time in Spain. Jan Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers are creating an installation specially for the show that also brings together works by Goya, Ensor, Kubin, Arcimboldo, Méliès and Luis Buñuel, plus many more. The exhibition “Metamorphosis”, curated by experimental film specialist Carolina López Caballero, presents the oeuvre of four key figures in animation cinema: the Russian resident in Paris, Ladislas Starewitch (1882-1965), a pioneer in the genre, the Czech master Jan Švankmajer (1934) and the unclassifiable Quay Brothers (1947), recently the subject of an exhibition at the New York MoMA. This exhibition is a coproduction of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona and La Casa Encendida Fundación Caja Madrid, where it will continue after its run at the CCCB, from 2 October 2014 to 11 January 2015. Though little known to the general public, these filmmakers are hugely influential in various fields of contemporary creation as references for, among others, filmmakers Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. This is the first time that the work of these four artists has been presented in depth in Spain, but what makes it a real international event is the fact that it brings together the work of these four animators engaged in an explicit dialogue: the Quay Brothers are self- confessed admirers of Jan Švankmajer, and the three are accompanied by Starewitch. The exhibition swings back and forth between the specific world of each of these artists and their shared universe, with the direct participation of Jan Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers, who are producing an installation specially for the show. The leading thread is a presentation of their careers in cinema and the pieces they have used and constructed to make their films: sets, puppets, drawings and objects. 4 Alongside it, an array of literary, artistic and cinematographic references illustrate the influences recognised by the artists: fairytales, horror stories, the world of dreams, the cabinet of curiosities, pre-enlightenment science, alchemy, magic and illusionism come together in the exhibition galleries in the form of works by foremost creators like Francisco de Goya, James Ensor, Alfred Kubin, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Méliès and Luis Buñuel. This is an imaginary that ranges from dark romanticism, symbolism and surrealism to the present day, especially in genres regarded as marginal, which in the hands of these animators become the most radical modernity. The exhibition sets out to rediscover and awaken curiosity in a brotherhood of artists who with their radicalness, imagination and their very stance are open to reinterpretation in the framework of culture today and a contextualization of their potential for subversion. The “Metamorphosis” experience (the exhibition plus its parallel activities of a film cycle and talks) begs a reflection on the curiosity/knowledge duality and the new role of the marginal in contemporary creation. At a time of oversaturation of information, it is important to redefine the concept of marginality. Like the cabinets of curiosities of the 17th century, the exhibition breaks the logic of relations between objects and between sources of materials, juxtaposing different categories to create an eccentric landscape. A landscape between sleeping and waking, where innocence, cruelty, voluptuousness, magic and madness rub shoulders. A disturbing surrealist landscape that is poetic and lucid, sometimes grotesque, sometimes phantasmagorical, populated with fable insects that love and suffer, puppets that laugh at the world or refuse to give in to their obsessions, characters who play, who dream, and who love the unproductive and the futile. The project reflects on the interest that many contemporary creators have in ways to generate meaning which, as in the Kunstkammer, organized and structure themselves regardless of strict hierarchy, like the avant-garde associative techniques of collage and assembly, prompting us to wonder whether the Internet is the new cabinet of curiosities of the 21st century. CREATORS PRESENT IN THE EXHIBITION Ladislas Starewitch | Jan Švankmajer | Quay Brothers | Leonardo Alenza Giuseppe Arcimboldo | Walerian Borowczyk | Charles Bowers | Luis Buñuel | Émile Cohl | Segundo de Chomón Salvador Dalí | Monsu Desiderio | James Ensor | Loie Fuller | Francisco de Goya | Jean Grandville | Emma Hauck | Atanasio Kircher Alfred Kubin | Charles Le Brun | Eugenio Lucas | Marey | Josep Masana Méliès | Joaquim Pla Janini | Lotte Reiniger | Bruno Schulz | Irène Starewitch Eva Švankmajerová | Robert Walser 5 3.- EXHIBITION TEXTS THE SECRET LIFE OF OBJECTS Metamorphosis presents the works of four key figures in the field of animated films: the pioneering Russian animator of Polish origin who made his home in Paris, Ladislas Starewitch (1882-1965), the Czech master, Jan Švankmajer (1934), and the Quay Brothers (1947), who were born in Pennsylvania but have lived in London for the past three decades. Three unique filmographies that, nonetheless, have a great deal in common: an eccentric universe of slumber where innocence, cruelty, voluptuousness, magic and madness coexist. A troubling, poetic, lucid and, at times grotesque, at times phantasmagorical, landscape of people who love the unproductive and futile. Theirs is a cinema of resistance against narrative conventions which is impervious to the rationalising hygiene modernity has imposed. In the face of the world of the adult and the correct, Starewitch’s imagination, Švankmajer’s provocation and the Quay Brothers’ permanently convalescing characters put themselves forward as an unexpected invitation to freedom. Animated cinema is the demiurgic art par excellence: matter comes to life and is transformed in the hands and imaginations of the creators. They, more than anybody, know about the secret life of objects. The exhibition also showcases a large number of artistic and cinematographic references which trace the spheres of interest these filmmakers are drawn to: fairytales, horror stories, the world of dreams, cabinets of curiosities, pre-Enlightenment science, alchemy and illusionism. ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A FOREST For centuries, forests marked the boundaries of civilisation and became a refuge for the magical and mysterious. By entering their deceptive paths and imposing nature, the central characters of fairytales embark on a journey of initiation fraught with dangers and challenges from which they emerge transformed, aware for the first time of their capabilities. The forest is the night, a symbolic journey to the terrifying subconscious onto which we can project our innermost fears, the space of the primitive and atavistic. It is the realm where the big bad wolf lives, as well as fairies and goblins; the realm over which adults have no control. LADISLAS STAREWITCH Starewitch was a pioneer and undisputed master of puppet animation, a self-taught filmmaker, a trained anthropologist and an amateur entomologist. He was born in Moscow in 1882 to Polish parents and made more than 100 films in Lithuania, in Russia and, from 1920 onwards, in France. His