ARTAUD A Staged Life
Films, drawings, documents
16 July - 16 October 2005
museum kunst palast
Ehrenhof 4-5, 40479 Duesseldorf
Tel.: 49-(0)211-8996211
marina.schuster [at] museum-kunst-palast.de
General Director: Jean-Hubert Martin Concept: Jean-Jacques Lebel Curators: Jean-Jacques Lebel and Dominique Païni Drawings: Dr. Christoph Danelzik-Brueggemann Project management: Dr. Christoph Danelzik-Brueggemann
Under the title of Artaud A Staged Life, the museum kunst palast is offering a comprehensive appreciation of the artistic creations of Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) in the form of a montrage. The exhibit will emphasize two focal points in the work of this important advocate of the avant-garde in the twentieth century: Artaud as a movie actor and Artaud as a graphic artist. Hence for the first time, this multimedia show will show the artist in all his film roles. All 22 films were located and incorporated into the Duesseldorf exhibit. Likewise for the first time in Germany, a concentrated selection of his graphic artworks will also be on display.
Antonin Artaud played in more than twenty films. He embodied Marat in Abel Gance’s Napoleon (1927), as well as the dissident priest in C.T. Dreyer’s epic La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1927-28), who stands by the heroine in her final hour. However, he not only demonstrated his ability to get deeply involved in a role in the blockbusters of the 1920′s. He was also one of the avant-garde radicals who became involved with surrealism and pataphysics and experimented with new forms of acting on stage and screen.
This exhibit brings together for the first time all the films that could be discovered and shows excerpts from them. The film excerpts will be set in an impressive testimonial featuring documents in part hitherto unknown, such as still photographs from his films and stage appearances, letters and various publications. There will also be two gripping audio documents from radio broadcasts Artaud made shortly before his death.
Artaud’s furor and passion for the art of acting will be immediately discernible in the exhibit. In a darkened labyrinth, all his film roles will be shown playing next to one another on the screens: in Three-Penny Opera (1930, by G.W. Pabst), Liliom (1933, by Fritz Lang), Lucrecia Borgia (1935) and many others. Only those scenes in which Artaud appeared will be shown here.
This blizzard of cinematic images will be supplemented by a show of Artaud as seen by …. It collects paintings, sketches and photographs of Artaud made by his artist friends; among these are Man Ray, Balthus and Jean Dubuffet a premiere in this combination.
Artaud’s radicalism, his constant destruction and recreation of the world, are given physical expression in his drawings. They lead into the depths of the psyche. Even today these works, hitherto only known in this part of the world through the translation of the monograph by Paule Thévenin and Jacques Derrida in the 1980′s, do not leave the observer unmoved. In their elemental effect, they are timeless without allowing one to forget when and under what circumstances they were made: in the course of years of severe nervous breakdowns.
In the portraits of Artaud’s final years, we see a preoccupation with external life. These are works that are never superficial, but marked by Antonin Artaud’s profound knowledge of human disintegration. In Germany, these graphic works of art have never before been shown in concentrated form. We hope that the memory of Artaud in Germany will be redefined in the future, and that he will no longer be perceived merely as a theoretician of avant-garde theatre, but as an important modern artist in his own right. (Jean-Hubert Martin)
Further stations of the exhibit:
November 10, 2005 February 12, 2006: PAC, Padiglione dArte Contemporanea, Milan
2006 (perhaps also Fondation Maeght, St. Paul de Vence)
Catalogue:
German, Italian and French catalogues will be issued.
size: approx. 156 pages with roughly 150 illustrations.
Size of exhibit:
approx. 135 exhibits films, portraits, drawings, documents
SPONSORS:
Kunststiftung NRW, French Embassy in Berlin, Institut Français Duesseldorf, MAGIC BOX® Special Events, Neuss,
cultural partners: WDR3, Frankenheim and Castenow.
The Stiftung museum kunst palast is a public-private partnership between the state capital of Duesseldorf, E.ON AG, METRO Group and degussa AG.
For further information and images: http:/www.museum-kunst-palast.de
Fringe program for the Artaud exhibit
July 21, 2005 200 Million Stockfibern
7:00 p.m. Philipp Danzeisen: drums, electronic
Markus Danzeisen: actor
Greg Kellum: computer programming
Exhibition hall
July 26, 2005 Small Affect Gia Edzgveradze and Everything is All Right with friends
8:00 – 10:00 p.m.Performance evening as part of the Antonin Artaud exhibit
Organizer: museum kunst palast with the support of the art and cultural foundation of Stadtsparkasse Duesseldorf
Exhibition hall
September 7, 2005 Sensitive Screen The Phantom of Antonin Artaud
Projection performance by Alain Fleischer
7:00 p.m. as part of the Antonin Artaud exhibit
Robert Schumann Hall
September 29, 2005 Philippe Dagen. Sur Artaud/On Artaud
7:00 p.m. Lecture in French/with translation
Organizer: Institut Fran?ais Duesseldorf in cooperation with museum kunst palast
Exhibition Hall
