From November 13 to 15, the Video-Forum at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) will present the 2018 program of Artists’ Film International (AFI) titled Truth. Artists’ Film International is an initiative by the Whitechapel Gallery in London and presents artists from the fields of film, video and animation. They are selected by international partner organizations and presented with selected works in the participating art institutions. These institutions include: Ballroom Marfa, Texas; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius; Belgrade Cultural Center; Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires; GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hanoi Doclab; MAAT – Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Lisbon; Istanbul Modern; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.); Para Site, Hong Kong; Project 88, Mumbai; Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art; Whitechapel Gallery, London und Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

The works presented at n.b.k. Video-Forum are grouped into three thematic subchapters: Media Truth, Materialized Truth and Performative Truth.

Thursday, November 15, 2018, 2 – 8 pm

Performative Truth

Danielle Dean, True Red Ruin (Elmina Castle), 2017, 9:39 min., selected by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Mikołaj Sobczak, STAR, 2017, 7:46 min., selected by the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw

Pelin Kırca, One Moonless Night, 2016, 3:25 min., selected by Istanbul Modern

Musa Paradisiaca, Masters of Velocity, 2017, 16:10 min., selected by MAAT – Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Lisbon

John Skoog, Shadowland, 2014, 15:20 min., selected by Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm

Vladimir Nikolić, There is No Landscape, 2014, 6:51 min., selected by the Belgrade Cultural Center

In True Red Ruin, Danielle Dean explains colonialism with the help of smartphones in a kind of chamber play. In the surrealist video STAR by Mikołaj Sobczak, drag queens occupy the Museum of Natural History in Warsaw in the wake of the “crisis of masculinity”. The animated video One Moonless Night by Pelin Kırca is inspired by The Conference of the Birds by the Persian poet and mystic Farid ud-Din Attar. Musa Paradisiaca’s Masters of Velocity is an associative collage dedicated to desire, while John Skoog’s Shadowland shows landscapes in the Los Angeles area, which in Hollywood films serve as substitutes for other parts of the world, such as Afghanistan, Tibet or the French Alps. Based on landscape photography, the video There is No Landscape by Vladimir Nikolić also deals with the concept of truth, which on a further level is highlighted by a discussion between two Chinese-speaking commentators attending an art performance.