Artists' Film International 2018

October 4-14, 2018

“Artists’ Film International” on “Truth”

Istanbul Modern presents Artists’ Film International, a program dedicated to the moving image, featuring videos, animations, and short films by artists from around the world. The videos focus on the subject of “truth” and how it is reflected in the artistic production process. This year Istanbul Modern has invited Pelin Kırca to the program. Kırca’s video “One Moonless Night” will be screened throughout 2018, not only at Istanbul Modern, but at the international partner organizations as well.

Initiated by the Whitechapel Gallery in 2008, Artists’ Film International continues this year in partnership with 18 art organizations from different parts of the world. Every year, partner organizations who share their knowledge and research on video art, select a work by an artist from their country around a specific theme. Following the curatorial work of each organization, the collaborative selection is presented to the audience in screenings. In previous years, Istanbul Modern participated in the program with videos by Ali Kazma, İnci Eviner, Ergin Çavuşoğlu, Sefer Memişoğlu, Bengü Karaduman, Burak Delier, Vahap Avşar, Zeyno Pekünlü and Cengiz Tekin.

 

The screenings are held at Istanbul Modern Cinema during October 4-14.

 

Programmers: Öykü Özsoy, Deniz Pehlivaner

 

Guest of 2018

Pelin Kırca

Born in 1982 in Atlanta, USA, Pelin Kırca graduated in 2004 from the Department of Graphic Design at Bilkent University in Ankara. She received her MFA in 2007 from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Kırca creates graphic and digital designs, as well as illustrations and drawings, into which she also incorporates moving images. The artist often produces plain figurative drawings using colored ink and watercolor on paper. She portrays the interaction between humans and nature through symbolic compositions. Thus, her drawings may feature ants climbing a tower to cast themselves down, a couple wearing goat’s masks sitting on a huge flower, a woman mourning a dead deer, a human tied to a Ferris wheel wearing a rat’s mask, a man disguised as a swan, or various figures depicted with a bird cage on their heads. Through fantastical settings that look like they came straight out of a circus, amusement park, or Alice in Wonderland, the artist renders permeable the boundaries between animals, plants, and humans. By combining the tale-like quality of her narratives with irony and implicit criticism, she enables a new reading.

 

One Moonless Night, 2016

3’25’’

Music: Morphine, “Kerouac”

Pelin Kırca’s video “One Moonless Night” draws its inspiration from the Mantiq ut-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds, 1177), the narrative poem written in the masnavi form by the Persian Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar. Using the graphic language, drawings, and motifs of our day, the artist reinterprets the tale of the thirty birds who set out to cross the seven valleys to find Simurgh. Adopting a literary approach that combines reality and fiction, the video shapes the story through a new expressive language. In the video, Kırca uses the song “Kerouac” by the 1990s alternative rock band Morphine. Notable for its poetic quality, the song reinforces the video’s rhythm and visuality. Named after Jack Kerouac, the most prominent writer of the Beat generation who adopted the generation’s principle that “being on the road is a form of production”, the song serves as a powerful reference for the search for truth. In her work, Kırca constructs a multilayered reality by taking as her starting point a poem in the masnavi form about a journey to discover the power within, and by bringing together the impressive language of the moving image with the accompanying music and lyrics.

 

Artists’ Film International 2017 Program Partners

Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, Texas, USA

Belgrade Cultural Centre, Belgrade, Serbia

Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden

CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania

Centre for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan (CCAA), Kabul, Afghanistan

Fundacion PRÓA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Galleria D’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo, Italy

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA

Hanoi/DOCLAB, Hanoi, Vietnam

Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Turkey

MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, Portugal

Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland

Video-Forum of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), Berlin, Germany

Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong

Project 88, Mumbai, India

Tromsø Kunstforening, Tromsø, Norway (TKF)

Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK

The Whitworth, The University of Manchester, UK

 

PROGRAM

Istanbul Modern presents AFI 2018 in two different screenings. The screenings are held between October 4 – 14, on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 13.00 and 15.00 at Istanbul Modern Cinema.

 

Screening at 13.00:

Duration: 95’

 

Pelin Kırca

One Moonless Night, 2016,3’25’’

Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Turkey

 

Rosa Barba

Outwardly from Earth's Center, 2007, 22’

n.b.k./ Neuer Berliner Kunstverein Berlin, Germany

 

Munem Wasif

Machine Matter, 2017, 13’55’’

Project 88, Mumbai, India

 

Patrick Hough

And If In A Thousand Years, 2017 , 22’14’’

Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK

 

Tom Ireland

Actuality Picture / The Magic Lantern (chapter 5), 2009 – 2017, 30’

The Whitworth, The University of Manchester, UK

 

 

Screening at 15.00:

Duration: 65’

 

Jibade-Khalil Huffman

First Person Shooter, 2016, 23’

Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, Texas, USA

 

Vladimir Nikolic

There is No Landscape, 2014, 6’45’’

Belgrade Cultural Centre, Belgrade, Serbia

 

Juan Sorrentino

Untitled, 2015, 8’11’’

Fundacion PRÓA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

 

Elena Mazzi

I’m Talking to You, 2016-2018, 11’

GAMeC / Galleria D’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo, Italy

 

Yim Sui Fong

Black Bird Island, 2017, 6’32”

Para Site, Hong Kong, China

 

Mikołaj Sobczak

Star, 2017, 7’46’’

Warsaw Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland