Acquisitions
ARTIST ROOMS: The d'Offay Donation
Johan Grimonprez (born 1962)
One room video installation Dial H-I-S-T-0-R-Y, 1997.
The young Belgian artist and filmmaker Johan Grimonprez came to prominence when his highly acclaimed one-hour video montage, Dial H-I-S-T-0-R-Y was first shown at Documenta X in 1997. Using found television and video footage the artist traced the history of airplane hijackings, from 1931 up to 1997, to reflect upon the concept of history and its documentation. The video footage and televised images of hijackings are juxtaposed with clips referencing the Cold War and other collective activities, while a voiceover reads quotations from Don DeLillo’s novels White Noise and Mao II. While the title suggests the possibility of ‘calling up’ history, the work highlights the subjective conditions under which any connection can be made or any conclusion drawn. Grimonprez draws attention to both the abundance of information available via the television and the missing links – the knowledge that hidden or unseen events occur that cannot be recorded – and thus presents the viewer with the potential impossibility of recording historical fact.
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, Inflight 1997–2001
Video installation
Overall display dimensions variable
Number 23 in an edition of 35
© Johan Grimonprez
Artists
- Diane Arbus
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- Georg Baselitz
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- Joseph Beuys
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- Vija Celmins
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- Ellen Gallagher
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- Gilbert & George
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- Johan Grimonprez
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- Richard Hamilton
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- Ian Hamilton Finlay
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- Damien Hirst
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- Jenny Holzer
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- Alex Katz
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- Anselm Kiefer
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- Jeff Koons
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- Jannis Kounellis
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- Sol LeWitt
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- Richard Long
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- Robert Mapplethorpe
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- Agnes Martin
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- Mario Merz
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- Ron Mueck
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- Bruce Nauman
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- Charles Ray
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- Gerhard Richter
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- Ed Ruscha
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- Robert Ryman
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- Robert Therrien
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- Cy Twombly
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- Bill Viola
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- Andy Warhol
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- Lawrence Weiner
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- Francesca Woodman
