Pablo Pijnappel
09 May - 15 Jun 2007
1921 – 1977 1979-, 2002, Super 8 on DVD, video installation, colour, sound, 8’34’’, Courtesy carlier gebauer, Berlin
The first UK show of the Paris born artist-filmmaker Pablo Pijnappel, premiering 4 major works: 1921-1977, 1979-, 2002; Andrew Reid, 2003; Walderedo, 2006; The Dog in the Park, 2007
Pablo Pijnappel’s work revolves around memory, the short-lived projection of the past into the present through the use of personal archives and found imagery.
Three films focus on the history of a single character from the artist’s own extended family. His haunting stories of rootless voyagers in search of their dreams take us across continents and back and forth in time, providing gripping tales of intrigue and adventure. Yet the works add up to more than an investigation into Pijnappel’s complex origins; they reflect more broadly on the nature of relationships, on the gaps between reality and aspiration, and the stories that we tell about who we are and where we come from. Combining footage shot by the artist, home movies and images appropriated from mainstream cinema, his works also offer a meditation on memory, cultural identity and the moving image.
1921–1977, 1979– narrates the story of Pijnappel’s grandfather, who fled Nazi-occupied Germany in search of his mother and eventually settled in Brazil. The images are derived from old family home movies, while a narrative written by the artist also extends to describe his own inverse trajectory from Brazil to the Netherlands in search of his origins.
In Andrew Reid, Pijnappel interweaves fact with fiction in two parallel narratives. The first is a series of recorded conversations between the artist and his stepfather, Reid, who is due to travel to Holland to feature in the work yet never makes it. The second is the story of Reid’s life, recounted in his absence as a series of increasingly improbable, and occasionally hilarious biographical anecdotes set to a montage of transitional shots from films such as Black Orpheus, Fitzcarraldo, Romancing the Stone and Taxi Driver, Walderedo focuses instead on the artist’s biological father, Walderedo Ismael de Oliveira Jr. The film is again composed by two narratives: one follows Pijnappel’s travels to see his father in Tokyo, where he leads a provisional existence as an artist suffering from depression, while the other travels back in time to Brazil and Walderedo’s own father, a noted psychoanalyst who moved in artistic and intellectual circles. Different locations shot by the artist offer an allusive visual collage that connects ideas about location, memory and identity.
Connected to this film is a slide installation, The Dog in the Park, a series of semi-narrative sequences that consist of photographed sketches by Walderedo Jr. Mostly drawn during the artist’s stay in Tokyo, the main characters in the narratives allude to events and locations that connect Pijnappel with his father, yet also provide the dreamy, open-ended narrative of comic strips.
www.whitechapel.org
Pablo Pijnappel’s work revolves around memory, the short-lived projection of the past into the present through the use of personal archives and found imagery.
Three films focus on the history of a single character from the artist’s own extended family. His haunting stories of rootless voyagers in search of their dreams take us across continents and back and forth in time, providing gripping tales of intrigue and adventure. Yet the works add up to more than an investigation into Pijnappel’s complex origins; they reflect more broadly on the nature of relationships, on the gaps between reality and aspiration, and the stories that we tell about who we are and where we come from. Combining footage shot by the artist, home movies and images appropriated from mainstream cinema, his works also offer a meditation on memory, cultural identity and the moving image.
1921–1977, 1979– narrates the story of Pijnappel’s grandfather, who fled Nazi-occupied Germany in search of his mother and eventually settled in Brazil. The images are derived from old family home movies, while a narrative written by the artist also extends to describe his own inverse trajectory from Brazil to the Netherlands in search of his origins.
In Andrew Reid, Pijnappel interweaves fact with fiction in two parallel narratives. The first is a series of recorded conversations between the artist and his stepfather, Reid, who is due to travel to Holland to feature in the work yet never makes it. The second is the story of Reid’s life, recounted in his absence as a series of increasingly improbable, and occasionally hilarious biographical anecdotes set to a montage of transitional shots from films such as Black Orpheus, Fitzcarraldo, Romancing the Stone and Taxi Driver, Walderedo focuses instead on the artist’s biological father, Walderedo Ismael de Oliveira Jr. The film is again composed by two narratives: one follows Pijnappel’s travels to see his father in Tokyo, where he leads a provisional existence as an artist suffering from depression, while the other travels back in time to Brazil and Walderedo’s own father, a noted psychoanalyst who moved in artistic and intellectual circles. Different locations shot by the artist offer an allusive visual collage that connects ideas about location, memory and identity.
Connected to this film is a slide installation, The Dog in the Park, a series of semi-narrative sequences that consist of photographed sketches by Walderedo Jr. Mostly drawn during the artist’s stay in Tokyo, the main characters in the narratives allude to events and locations that connect Pijnappel with his father, yet also provide the dreamy, open-ended narrative of comic strips.
www.whitechapel.org