e-flux video rental is pleased to present a screening put together by Supportico Lopez
Luke Fowler/Kosten Koper Susanne Burner Emily Wardill
Luke Fowler/Kosten Koper “The way out, portrait of Xentos Jones” (2003), DV, 32’
Fowler creates fractured bricolages of found images, half-inched slogans or hand-drawn symbols, making a composite that eludes conventional narratives to create intuitively woven pieces reverberant with the vitality of their subject. ‘The Way Out,’ is a psychedelic, exuberant miasma depicting the flamboyance, bloody-mindedness and idiosyncrasies of its subject, Xentos Jones, the charismatic, eccentric lead-singer of punk band the Homosexuals. ‘The Way Out’ is a claustrophobic, unflinching portrait of a fascinating character, a free musician, an anarchist composer, a poet, a filmmaker.
Luke Fowler(1978), who lives and works in Glasgow, has exhibited internationally in solo presentations at White Columns, New York, 2006; Kunsthalle Zürich, 2008 and Serpentine gallery, London in 2009.
Susanne Burner “50,000,000 can’t be wrong” (2006), DV, B/W, 6’ 24”
“50,000,000 can’t be wrong” shows crowds of people expressing longing and despair through their mimics and gestures. Their subject of attraction, their idol, is missing. He is off-frame, hidden to the viewer. All traces referring to him are erased from the footage. What remains is his reflection in the faces and reactions of the audience, in images spanning several decades of the last century.
Susanne Bürner (1970) studied Media Arts at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe. She lives and works in Berlin. Her work has been presented on diverse occasions, in a number of places, among them: Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin; Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Tank.tv, 2007, Tate Modern, London.
Emily Wardill “Ben” (2007) 10’, 16mm
Ben is a ten-minute film that forms the second part of Emily Wardill’s work “Basking in what feels like ‘an ocean of grace’, I soon realise that I’m not looking at it, but rather that I AM it, recognising myself”. Shot in colour on a set that was built in black and white, Ben re-inhabits a famous case study involving hypnosis. The authority of the case study, the rickety construction of the set and the faltering voiceover hold the film together in a precarious balance.
Emily Wardill (1977) lives and works in London. A senior lecturer at Central Saint Martins College of Art, she is currently working on her new film, Game Keepers without Game, which will be exhibited at The Showroom, London, in 2010. She won, in 2008 the “Follow Fluxus – after Fluxus” prize. Her work has been shown internationally in private galleries and museums, including ICA, London, Perth Museum of Contemporary art, Perth.
Supportico Lopez started its activity in Naples in 2003 with the characteristic of being the project of a curator that decided to have a room in his flat open to public exhibitions of international artists. The project, run by curators Gigiotto Del Vecchio and Stefania Palumbo, is a curatorial space for contemporary art diffusion, taking its name from the street in which it was located in Naples, in one of the oldest, contradictory and popular district of the city: “la Sanità”.
In 2008 Supportico Lopez decided to move to Berlin. Here, in the new space in Graefestrasse 9 in Kreuzberg, the aim is to continue to be a space in which the curatorial attitude will be more and more a peculiarity. Supportico Lopez realized several solo and group exhibitions, including three solo shows by artists who mostly work with film and video. Luke Fowler in 2004, Susanne Burner in 2006 and Emily Wardill in 2009.
In occasion of the screening at e-flux in Berlin, Supportico Lopez will presents the video works of these three artists.
Supportico Lopez would like to thank e-flux, Magdalena Magiera; The Modern Institute, Glasgow; Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin; Jonathan Viener/Fortescue avenue, London; Standard, Oslo; Lux, London.
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e-flux video rental (EVR) is an ongoing work by Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda, comprising a free video rental, a public screening room, and a film and video archive that is constantly growing. This collection of over 850 works of film and video art has been assembled in collaboration with more than 400 artists, curators and critics.
EVR is a poetic exploration of alternative processes of circulation and distribution, and it is structured to function like a typical video rental store, except that it operates for free. VHS tapes can be watched in the space, or, once a new member fills out a membership form and contract, they can be checked out and viewed at home.
Originally presented at a storefront in New York, in 2004, EVR has traveled to art venues in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Seoul, Paris, Istanbul, Canary Islands, Austin, Budapest, Boston, Antwerp, Berlin, Miami, Lyon and Lisbon. EVR will travel to Colombia, Argentina and Brazil later this fall. Having outlived the technology that made it possible (VHS video tape players), the project will be permanently archived with the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut and Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana, in 2009.