BREAKING GROUND III: Portrait Penny SiopisFriday, January 23, 8.30 pm
Materiality Beyond Control
She is one of the most brilliant substandard film archeologists of the 20th century, an authority of South African (cinematic) art for more than 30 years and finally has accepted our invitation to come to Dresden in 2015: Penny Siopis.
Already her early works were the cause for a lot of excitement: expressive, complex, baroque paintings that dealt with the traumas of African history (colonialism, apartheid) as well as with constructions and discriminations of gender. For 20 years now, Penny Siopis examines the field of discriminatory practices using archives and film footage, often of private and sometimes of family origin. Small reels of 8 mm film with a strong explosive power. Penny Siopis, South African with Greek roots, dissects and (dis-)assembles the image sequences and narratives together with parts of the iconographic remains of South Africa – sometimes evident, sometimes hidden traces of apartheid. With few but very precise interventions (comments, new sound backdrops) the filmmaker detaches the material from the old entanglement and unveils surprising connections. National history and memories start to intersect. Layer by layer, Siopis advances to the sediments of South African culture and history. A journey through time and space. Reflected, political, emotional – an experience!
My Lovely Day, 1997, 21 min. | Obscure White Messenger, 2010, 15 min. The Master is Drowning, 2012, 10 min. | Communion, 2011, 5 min.
In cooperation with the dresdner schmalfilmtage, the KUNSTHAUS DRESDEN, Rähnitzgasse 8, 01097 Dresden, presents: Sunday, January 25, 2015, 8.00 pm | Discussion with the artist Penny Siopis
