From November 30 through December 4, 2016, Art Basel will present a premier program of over 50 film and video works by some of today’s most exciting artists from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Selected from the show's participating galleries by David Gryn, Director of Daata Editions and Artprojx, this year’s program will include ‘Muxima’, the first film by Chilean -born artist Alfredo Jaar, as well as a silent film about music by Christian Marclay and a new work by Liliana Porter. The program will also include short films by Edgardo Aragón, Ain Bailey and Sonia Boyce, Cabelo, Kudzanai Chiurai, Martin Creed, Keren Cytter, Kim Gordon, Rodney Graham, György Kovásznai, Rashid Johnson, Li Daiguo, Li Shurui, Jillian Mayer, Ana Mendieta, Haroon Mirza, Ara Peterson, Alex Prager, Anri Sala, Wilhelm Sasnal, Tromarama and Samson Young among many others. Screenings will take place both in SoundScape Park on the 7,000 square-foot outdoor projection wall of the New World Center, as well as on dedicated touchscreen monitors within the Film Library at Art Basel's show in the Miami Beach Convention Center. In addition, Marian Masone, New York based film consultant and strategist, has selected ‘Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back’ (2016) directed by Maura Axelrod, for a special screening at the Colony Theatre on Friday, December 2.
For her second year as Art Basel film curator, Marian Masone has selected ‘Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back’ (2016) by Maura Axelrod , an original and highly entertaining portrait of the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan (b. 1960). The film presents a profile of the provocative and elusive art-world upstart, who launched his career with playful and subversive works that mocked the artistic establishment. The screening will take place at the Colony Theatre at 8.30pm on Friday, December 2. Entry is free, but seating is limited.
Returning for his sixth year, curator David Gryn presents several works that engage with music, including a set of 28 short films screened under the title ‘Best Dressed Chicken in Town’ after a classic 1970s reggae song by Jamaican singer Doctor Alimantado. The lineup focuses on a selection of international artists who engage with music in a multitude of ways. A ‘Double Bill’ program will pair two film works that share similar themes or approaches to an intense musical score: Rita Ackermann (b. 1968) and Christian Marclay (b. 1955) on Wednesday, and Liliana Porter (b. 1941) and Alfredo Jaar (b. 1956) on Friday. In ‘Mixed Reviews (American Sign Language)’ (1999/2001) Marclay, who was recently awarded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s annual Contemporary Vision Award, reconstructs texts describing musical performances through a deaf actor’s translation into American Sign Language. In ‘Movement as Monument’ (2011), Rita Ackermann digitally collages disparate audio and video source materials. Jaar’s ‘Muxima’ (2005) is a cinematic elegy dedicated to the people of Angola, structured around interpretations of a local folk song to explore six aspects of Angola’s history: colonization, Communism, the 30-year civil war, the AIDS epidemic, poverty and challenges presented by the oil industry. Porter also responds to contemporary issues with the 2016 work ‘Actualidades / Breaking News’, which re-enacts newspaper stories through model trains and vintage toys.
The late screening on Thursday, December 1 will feature works by sound artist and DJ Ain Bailey (b. 1963), with Sonia Boyce (b.1962), along with pieces by Anna Grenman (b. 1984), Rashid Johnson (b. 1977), Alex Prager (b. 1979) and Penny Siopis (b. 1953). The final presentation on Saturday, December 3 will include three early films by Polish artist Wilhelm Sasnal (b. 1972), in which he added visual accompaniment to enhance the aural experience, along with a recent work, in which the score directly drives the narrative, replacing spoken words.
Every evening, directly preceding the Film program, sound works by Ain Bailey, Zoë Buckman, A.K. Burns, Jonathan Montague, Molly Palmer and Susannah Stark will be presented on the state-of-the -art surround system in SoundScape Park. In conjunction with the outdoor film screenings, over 50 works have been selected to be shown exclusively within Art Basel's designated Film Library at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
On Sunday, December 4 at 2pm, Art Basel's Salon program will feature ‘The Artist as Composer', a talk between the artists Rachel Manson, Molly Palmer and Susannah Stark , and Kathryn Mikesell, Founder of The Fountainhead Residency and Studios in Miami. The talk will be moderated by William Simmons, author, Hyperallergic, New York, with an introduction by Film curator David Gryn. Art Basel entry tickets include admission to Salon.
The Film sector's Media Partner is Time Out.
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