Double Ghosts / Bóng ma kép: Screening & Talk with George Clark Hanoi Doclab, Vietnam, 2 July 2019
“With great pleasures, Hanoi Doclab presents a program with artist/curator George Clark who will talk about his expanded practice with film from projection performances to exhibitions and show his new film Double Ghosts. George Clark is in Vietnam as part of the British Council’s Heritage of Future Past project doing research for new project and preparing for a future workshop with artists and filmmakers in Vietnam.”
Thanks to everyone at Hanoi Doclab for invitation and special thanks to Nyugen Trinh Thi for making new Vietnamese subtitles for my films!
HanoiDocLab, 2 July 2019HanoiDocLab, 2 July 2019HanoiDocLab, 2 July 2019
Supported by the British Council under the FAMLAB fund. More information on new project coming soon
The Scent of Jati Trees / Jatiwangi
13th Punto de Vista, Pamplona, Spain
International Documentary Film Festival of Navarra
11-16 March 2019
The Scent of Jati Trees / Jatiwangi was part of the official selection of the Punto De Vista festival. Featuring 30 films, the official selection formed the most international edition of Punto de Vista with works from Canada, Chile, Argentina, Germany, the UK, the USA, Ireland, Indonesia, Belgium, Zambia, France, the Dominican Republic, Uzbekistan, Mexico, Iran, Spain, Portugal and India.
World festival premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019. Double Ghosts was shown as part of special programme The Laboratory of Unseen Beauty curated by Olaf Möller.
“In 1995, Raúl Ruiz went to Taiwan, where he shot La comédie des ombres at Jīnbao Shān cemetery; he never got around to editing the material. George Clark wonders what this work, rooted in Luigi Pirandello’s Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore and fables by Zhuāng Zhōu, could have been like. ” – IFFR
XTC Majalengka X George Clark
10 Village Video Festival
Jatiwangi Art Factory
15-16 December 2018
What can we do to bring the body closer to the place where we live? Walking may be one of them….
The XTC Majalengka motorbike enthusiast club collaborated with George Clark to take part in a mass walk following the hiking route from a group of grandfathers from Marsden in West Yorkshire. We invited more than 100 local members of XTC, to put aside their motorbikes and set out on foot across Majalengka’s land, to experience their locality through new prism and observe the continuing changes towards its future as new industrial centre.
Jatiwangi / The Scent of Jati Trees
Village Video Festival 10: West Java West Yorkshire Cooperative Movement
Jatiwangi Art Factory, December 2018
Special screenings of Jatiwangi / The Scent of Jati Trees in the newly built Jatiwangi Sinemathek. Held as part of the 10th Village Video Festival 10 as part of series of projects to inaugurated the West Java West Yorkshire Cooperative Movement.
We held two screenings one in Sinemathek space with refreshments kindly supplied by the Wates community and then a following screening in the JaF kitchen specially organised for.
The screenings mark completion of first cycle of project with Jatiwangi art Factory and launching of new expanded collaborative project the West Java West Yorkshire Cooperative Movement. Jatiwangi / The Scent of Jati Trees was produced during a film viewing / film making workshop run during July-September 2017 in which we launched the idea of the Jatiwangi Sinemathek as forum for projection and reflection on the way images are produced both through making but also through viewing taking into account where, how and with whom we watch images. Parallel to the shoot we created a series of improvised cinemas were constructed for site specific screenings as the Jatiwangi Sinemathek.
Wild Rhizome – 2018 Taiwan Biennale
National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Taichung, Taiwan
22 September 2018 – 10 February 2019
Curated by Jow-Jiun Gong & Yu-Ling Chou
Curated by Jow-Jiun Gong and Yu-Ling Chou, the exhibition is organised under theme Wild Rhizome. My project Double Ghostswas presented in the biennale alongside works by 32 artists/collectives.
“Configured as overgrown and intertwined plants, Wild Rhizome endeavours to address a threefold subject: the organisational structure of artistic communities, the non-linear generation of artistic events, and the constellation of alternative histories. Following the arts springing up like wild grasses from interstitial crevices, Wild Rhizome is also a response to and an attempt at the paradigm shift of art history, an exploratory journey into alternative history. As we strive to tame the kaleidoscopic frontier of alternative histories, which focuses its gaze on indigenous art practices and historical traumas in the 20th and 21st centuries outside the mainstream Han culture.
The exhibition seeks not only to distinguish between Taiwan’s contemporary art and the identity-driven politics of biennial exhibition, but also to liberate “Taiwan’s contemporary art,”, a term difficult to be accurately defined though, from Taiwan’s past history of colonization and immigration as well as from its nationalist ethos in search of the “national” origin, making it possible to reinvent this island by raising the question as to what Taiwan is on earth. Organised under five sub-themes — “Wild Mountains and Seas”, “Wild Images and Alternative Histories”, “Wild Body”, “Wild Constellation”, and “Wild Dwelling” — developed from the underlying concept of “wild rhizome” and presented in multifarious forms such as visual arts, cinema, theater, settlement, seminar, and workshop. The ethos of this specific venue overgrown with organic “wild rhizome” thus manifests itself in these event-driven cross-disciplinary experiments.
Taking an innovative approach, the 2018 Taiwan Biennial revolves around the artists’ respective projects in general and large-scale site-specific works in particular. This exhibition is accomplished in collaboration with a total of 32 artists/groups, including:
Uitsiann ONG, The Other Cinema Collective, WU Chi-Zeng, WU Tzu-An, WU Yao-Chung, LI Jiun-Yang, Lee Jiun-Shyan, Body Phase Studio, Rahic Talif, Blessing East Coast, LIN Yu-Ting, LIN Bo-Liang, LIN Chun-Yung, KAO Jun-Honn, CHANG Li-Ren, CHANG En-Man + YANG Wen-Shan (Kuljelje Balasasau), CHANG Wen-Hsuan, CHANG Chao-Tang, CHUANG Ling, KUO Yu-Ping, CHEN Yun, Eric CHEN + LIN Yann-Lyn. CHEN Yin-Ju, Richard Yao-chi CHEN, George CLARK, Tree Tree Tree Person – Taroko Arts Residency Project, Yannick DAUBY + TSAI Wan-Shuen, CHENG Ting, SU Yu-Xin, SU Yu-Hsien, SU Hsin-Tien, and SU Hui-Yu.”
My project Double Ghostswas installed in special configuration featuring with two projections, two challenge video work on monitors as well as archival items, production photographs and video documentation, historical painting by Yu Peng and newly commissioned painting by Kar Siu Lee.
The evolving multi-part project Double Ghosts explores the status and potential of unrealised and fragmented histories from the legacy of Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz (1941-2011) to animist cinematic traditions in Taiwan. Considering broader issues from cultural displacement, exile and the changing nature of cinema as the hiatus between the real and the unreal Double Ghosts employs an open model of production and exhibition to activate divergent cultural, social and geographical contexts.The project takes as it’s starting point an unfinished film made by Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz shot in Taiwan in 1995.
Based in Paris since the late 1970s Ruiz came to Taiwan to film The Comedy of Shadows / La comedie des ombres with a script inspired by Taoist philosophy of Chuang Tzu’s Wandering on the Way and Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. The project was filmed at Chin Sao Pao cemetery with a Taiwanese cast and crew but never finished. The incompleteness of Ruiz’s film is the starting point for Double Ghosts, that considers the echoes of this unrealized project to explore cinematic and political phantoms. The installation draws together 35mm film, sound recordings, script fragments, photography and archival material assembled on location in Chile and Taiwan. Material from a screening performance held at the Chin Sao Pao cemetery in early summer will also be featured in the installation. Together these materials are formed into new configurations throughout the exhibition proposing an archeological method for considering the legacy of lost histories from site specific screenings to ritual actions.
To accompany the biennale I curated outdoor projection of my Eyemo Rolls project ‘Like a boat floating in the moonlight / 像一隻船 在月夜裡搖呀搖‘ 6 October 2018 with work by Chang Chao-tang, Richard Yao-chi Chen, Mok Chui-yu & Li Ching, Shannon Te Ao, Chen Chieh-jen, Raúl Ruiz and CADA/Colectivo Acciones de Arte.
‘Double Ghosts’ exhibition documentation, 2018 Taiwan Biennale‘Double Ghosts’ exhibition documentation, 2018 Taiwan Biennale‘Double Ghosts’ exhibition documentation, 2018 Taiwan Biennale‘Double Ghosts’ exhibition documentation, 2018 Taiwan BiennaleChin Pao San projection of ‘Double Ghosts’ documentation‘Inner Sage / Outer King’, 35mm frame enlargement, George Clark, 2018‘Inner Sage / Outer King’, 35mm frame enlargement, George Clark, 2018‘Double Ghosts’, 35mm frame enlargement, George Clark, 2018‘Double Ghosts’, 35mm frame enlargement, George Clark, 2018
Like a boat floating in the moonlight 2018 Taiwan Biennial
National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Taichung, Taiwan
18:30-20:30, Saturday 6 October 2018
Like a boat floating in the moonlight is a site specific presentation of the 35mm film project Untitled (Eyemo Rolls) 2011-2018 specially conceived for the 2018 Taiwan Biennial. With the East China Sea to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Luzon Strait to the south and the South China Sea to the southwest, Taiwan is situated at complex geographical and cultural intersection. Drawing on the vernacular mode of sited film exhibition practiced by temple projectionists in Taiwan, this screening seeks to open up new ways to consider cultural and geographical slippages, between presence and absence, considering both the material parameters of 35mm film projection and metaphysical questions on the nature of appearances and ways in which complex geographies and histories can be mapped.
Begun in 2011 and consisting of over 200 individual film rolls, Untitled (Eyemo Rolls) was developed as a means to respond to the work of other artists, think about cultural entanglement and the cinema as a locality situated between places. This special presentation assembled for the Taiwan Biennale, considers Taiwan as a Pacific island drawing on works from Aotearoa New Zealand, Chile, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and USA interspersed with 35mm rolls shot by George Clark in these various countries. Each work is drawn from a particular geography but also blurs the line between them.
Thanks to participating artists; Chang Chao-tang, Richard Yao-chi Chen, Mok Chui-yu & Li Ching, Shannon Te Ao, Chen Chieh-jen, Raúl Ruiz and CADA/Colectivo Acciones de Arte.
Double Ghosts at Chin Pao San 19 August 2018, Chin Pao San cemetery, Taiwan
The outdoor screening at the Chin Sao Pao cemetery will feature the Taiwanese premiere of Double Ghosts a new 35mm film work by George Clark / 喬治 克拉克. Taking place in the original location of Raúl Ruiz’s unfinished film The Comedy of Shadows/影子喜劇, and on the 7th anniversary of his death, the outdoor projection is a tribute to Raúl Ruiz and his phantom film. George Clark’s film was made in Chile and Taiwan and considers the echoes of unrealised projects and political histories responding to the life and work of Raúl Ruiz, the legacy of the short lived socialist Unidad Popular government in Chile and Ruiz’s connections with Taiwan and China. Double Ghosts attempts to use the space of cinema as a site of projection between the past and the present. Drawing on the tradition of ceremonial screenings in Taiwan the special event will be realised in collaboration with a traditional temple projectionist invited to present George Clark’s new 35mm film. The screening will from part of George Clark’s project for the 2018 Taiwan Biennial “Wild Rhizome,” National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.
Presented in collaboration with Taipei Contemporary Art Centre, The Other Cinema Collective & Taiwan Biennial.
Special thanks to Chin Pao San for hosting event and Huiying Chen, Yuling Chou and Shih-yu Hsu.
In 1995, Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz flew to Taiwan to film The Comedy of Shadows / 影子喜劇. The film was shot but never finished. The incompleteness of Ruiz’s film is the starting point for Double Ghosts, an new multi-part project by artist and curator George Clark (UK). Double Ghosts considers the echoes of this unrealised project to explore cinematic and political phantoms, from the status and potential of unrealised and fragmented histories to the legacy of Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz (1941-2011) and animist cinematic traditions in Taiwan. While working on his new project George Clark will collaborate with TCAC on series of events that seek to activate these fragments and consider questions of cultural displacement, exile and the changing nature of cinema as the hiatus between the real and the unreal.
George Clark will present Double Ghosts in Taiwan during the final stages of its production as he prepares installation of the project for the 2018 Taiwan Biennale. The project has previously been presented at the Museum of Visual Arts in Santiago Chile in December 2017 and the AV Festival in UK in March 2018. The first event will take place at TCAC and the second will be a site specific screening at the Chin Pao San cemetery, with free transport provided from and returning to TCAC office.
For the first event at TCAC on 8.17, George Clark will give an illustrated talk introducing his project Double Ghosts sharing his research in Chile, Taiwan and Europe exploring Raúl Ruiz’s unfinished film The Comedy of Shadows/ 影子喜劇. Dedicated to the potential and legacy of lost works, the evening will look at how history can be constructed through phantoms and fragments with a rare screening of Raúl Ruiz’s landmark film The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (1979). Originally commissioned for French television as a documentary on philosopher and novelist Pierre Klossowski, Ruiz’s legendary film evolved into a unique speculation on the enigmatic power of images. Deftly blending genres between documentary and fiction, Ruiz’s film creates an elaborate labyrinth in order to trace a lost work by an 19th Century artist whose work is shrouded in mystery and erotic intrigue. Mixing art theory, occult speculation and cinematic games, the brilliant film is filled with clues through which to understand Ruiz’s broader body of work.
The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Dir. Raul Ruiz, 1978)
Featuring The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting / L’Hypothese du tableau volé (Dir. Raúl Ruiz, France, 1978, 66min)
‘Get Out and Push!’
Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, UK
12 May to 19 August 2018
‘Get Out and Push!’, an exhibition that begins with the British Free Cinema film movement of the late 1950s. The term ‘free’ is used loosely to denote a programme of films having been made free from propaganda, under independent circumstances or free from technical and social convention.
As a precursor to the British New Wave, Free Cinema marked a broader attitudinal shift in cinema and the arts against the exclusion of whole areas of life. Through a supporting programme of film and events, the exhibition will examine how the movement reflects the present challenges and methods of resistance employed by filmmakers and artists alike. This will include a temporary cinema space built into gallery one.
Including works by Lindsay Anderson, Michael Grigsby, Lorenza Mazzetti, Robert Vas and Free Cinema Seven: George Clark, Redmond Entwistle, William Fowler, Matthew Noel-Tod, Rastko Novakovich.
Exhibition features work ‘Operations’ (2007) collective work originally produced for exhibition Free Cinema Seven, O3ONE project, Belgrade, Serbia.
Operations (Free Cinema Seven, 2007)
“Operations is a collaborative project utilizing key elements of cinema: image, sound and text. The work presented is the result of year-long activities by Free Cinema Seven, during which the group freely exchanged and edited different materials between the five group members. The process of cinema production is performed as a conversation about cinema. Individual and group concerns contribute to a creative process where the traces of each stage of production (editing, exchange, discussions, iterations) are allowed to exist within the final single screen video.”
