Stretching across the Starr Cinema, the Tanks and gallery displays, Tate Modern announces a new season of film and moving image, comprising screenings, discussions and installations of works by emerging and established artists and filmmakers. Highlights include the UK premiere of Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s new video installation and performance Walled Unwalled in the Tanks, a cinema survey dedicated to the Chinese film pioneer Wang Bing, the first museum gathering of a generation of artist-filmmakers working over the last decade, and premieres followed by Q&As with artists Shireen Seno and Jumana Manna.
STARR CINEMA
To launch this season’s Artists’ Cinema– a strand for artists to showcase and discuss their recent films for the first time in London – Filipino artist and filmmaker Shireen Seno presents her award-winning feature film Nervous Translation. Set in the Philippines in the late 80s, the film captures the innocence, magic and uncertainty of childhood. The following week, Canadian-born, Berlin-based artist Jeremy Shaw presents the UK premiere of his recently completed Quantification Trilogy. The short films in this trilogy imagine future countercultural behaviours, exploring altered states, hallucination, ecstasy, belief, transcendence and fantasy. In October, American artist Jumana Manna shares the London premiere of her latest film Wild Relatives, which follows the astonishing story of seed preservation in the face of war and climate change.
In November, American artist James N. Kienitz Wilkins presents the UK premiere of his new short film This Action Lies, which will be screened together with his 2017 film Mediums, both of which take different approaches to exploring questions of language, performance and media technologies. In January, Puerto Rican artist Beatriz Santiago Muñoz shares a selection of recent short films never before screened in the UK, combining aspects of ethnography and theatre to explore ecology, the relationship between artwork and labour and post-military landscapes. The 2018–19’s Artists’ Cinema series closes with an intergenerational dialogue between British artist James Richards and American video pioneer Leslie Thornton, whose programme Abyss Film was specifically conceived for the Starr Cinema. Continuing the artists’ exploration of X-ray imaging, particle physics and the Atomic Bomb, this one-hour screening presents a mix of excerpts, raw material and new experiments culled from their ever-expanding archive.
As part of the ongoing Counter-Histories strand – a thematic series examining practices that challenge stereotypes of movements in film and art history – October’s Museum of Clouds series marks the first museum gathering of a generation of artist-filmmakers whose works have shifted the field of artists’ cinema over the last decade. This programme includes films by international figures Gabriel Abrantes, Basma Alsharif, Benjamin Crotty, Mati Diop, Beatrice Gibson, Shambhavi Kaul, Laida Lertxundi, Matías Piñeiro, Ben Rivers, Ben Russell, Ana Vaz and Phillip Warnell. Post-screening discussions will explore the various forms of dialogue and collaboration initiated among these artists and the figures that have fostered these forms of exchange.
For the latest in the Pioneers series – surveys of ground-breaking artists’ contributions to cinema – Tate Modern celebrates the boundary-pushing documentary films of radical artist and filmmaker Wang Bing. Challenging film structure and duration, Bing’s films are characterised by the sincerity and intimacy with which they witness the accelerated transformation of China’s landscape. This weekend-long survey includes a screening of the artist's three-part masterwork West of the Tracks in its entirety, as well as an artist talk and Q&As.
THE TANKS
As part of Tate Modern’s dedication to exhibiting sound and expanded moving image practice, the film programme extends beyond the walls of the cinema into the Tanks for the UK premiere of Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s expanded video installation Walled Unwalled, as well as a one-night-only performance developed specifically for the space titled After SFX. Walled Unwalled is grounded in a series of legal cases hinged on evidence obtained or experienced through walls, floors and doors. After SFX uses inventive methods to uncover the unexpected ways in which we encode sonic events in our memories. Together they contribute to a body of work derived from the artist’s 2016 investigation of the Saydnaya prison in Syria. A new commission relating to these investigations will be on view in Abu Hamdan’s concurrent solo exhibition Earwitness Theatre at Chisenhale Gallery, London (21 September – 9 December 2018), giving audiences the opportunity to see the project in its entirety across the two galleries.
DISPLAYS
Following Aldo Tambellini’s 2012 landmark multimedia installation in the Tanks, Tate has made an important acquisition of ten of the artist’s works in film, video, slide projection, painting, photography and expanded media. An immersive presentation of a selection of these works is now on view in Tate Modern’s free displays, drawing out the artist’s deep interest in the circular form and the colour black, which are grounded in his fascination with cosmic and primal energies. Film installations by artists William Kentridge and Erkan Özgen are also now open at Tate Modern.
In September, Christian Marclay’s internationally celebrated 24-hour video installation The Clock will go on display. The public will be invited to experience the work for free during gallery opening hours, as well as at additional 24-hour viewing sessions.
Tate Film is curated by Andrea Lissoni, Senior Curator, International Art (Film), Tate Modern, and Carly Whitefield, Assistant Curator, Film, Tate Modern. The programme is produced by Judith Bowdler, Production Manager, Tate Modern.
Tate Film is supported by In Between Art Film.