Photo credit (slideshow documentation images): Axel Lambrette

“An investigative series of screenings with simultaneous performances and other projections that explore the ways in which what we see is shaped by what we see it with, cinema is reimagined as a live event and the line between artistic and curatorial practice becomes radically blurred…” - I.W.

White conceived this project in the context of a Berlin-based scholarship, jointly offered by the DAAD German Academic Exchange Service and Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art. As part of the scholarship, Arsenal gave White access to their film archive and other resources, with the idea that he would produce a public project as a result.

White was particularly inspired by a feature film, It’s Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives (1971) by Rosa von Praunheim. His subsequent project included a performance of his own work IBIZA: A reading for ‘The Flicker’; a series of screenings at Arsenal, including von Praunheim’s film, where projected films were combined with live elements; and a unique screening of films by artist Richard Serra in a gay sex club.

As with some of his other projects, White continued to rethink and represent elements of the programme he had made for Arsenal. In summer 2009 he presented another screening series based around von Praunheim’s film, as part of his programme for Whitechapel Gallery in London. The culmination of this project was a presentation at the 60th Berlinale Forum under the title Kopietheater a year later (see separate entry).

“The program Ian White has curated for Arsenal is a research project named after Rosa von Praunheim's famous 1971 film. It addresses the relationship between artistic and curatorial practice – between a film presentation and its context – to the extent that context becomes content and the projection of a film becomes a manipulated performance event. The effects this research project has had on the film curator are enormous, since they refer to the historicity of cinema as an institution and thus point out its inner and outer limits.

“Perhaps it is this performative handling of the spatial and imaginary conditions of ‘cinema’ that is reflected in a four-day program by Ian White. His own practice as an artist played a central role in the conception and choice of performances, slide shows and readings accompanying each film projection. The history of the house is addressed in a unique way: with few exceptions, all the films to be shown were screened in 1971 at the 1st International Forum of New Cinema. The selection was made according to strict conceptual criteria: there will only be films by women or by collectives. Leaving the conventional cinema space will be physically noticeable for the viewer: the program will take place in three locations: the Arsenal cinema, the venue lab.oratory and the gallery Tanya Leighton, where the program will open with White's performance IBIZA: A Reading For 'The Flicker'.” - Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art press release

Programme details

27 March: IBIZA: A Reading for ‘The Flicker’

Ian White, live performance featuring The Flicker, Tony Conrad, US 1966

28 March: Parallel projections part 1, Arsenal Cinema

Monangambeee, Sarah Maldoror, Algeria 1969, 16mm, 17'

D, Guido Lombardi, Anna Lajolo, Italy 1970, 16mm, 40'

Blue Monday / War Machine, The Duvet Brothers, GB 1984, video, 10'

accompanied by a reading of an extract from Contemporary Colonial Art by Luis Camnitzer

Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Gesellschaft in der er lebt (It's not the homosexual who is perverse. but the situation in which he lives), Rosa von Praunheim, West Germany 1971, 16mm, 67'

shown simultaneously with

untitled (David Wojnarowicz project), Every Ocean Hughes [formerly known as Emily Roysdon], 2001-2007, projected photographs

29 March: Parallel projections part 2, Arsenal Cinema

Les Passagers, Annie Tresgot, Algeria 1971, 35mm, 85'

shown simultaneously with

a live audio broadcast of Algerian radio

Low in the Cave

Live performance based on Othon, Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet, West Germany/Italy 1970 35mm, 85’

30 March: Richard Serra's Hands, lab.oratory

An experimental screening in Berlin's gay sex-lab of Serra's films that feature his own hands.

Further material

Download the original Arsenal programme flyer (designed by Harald Niessner)

Download the adapted programme for Whitechapel Gallery, London

Read more about the programme in White’s interview ‘The Cinema Auditorium’, published on oncurating.org, issue #03/10