Fondazione Prada presents the film program “Artists under the big Top: Perplexed 2018-1968 (with new films)” conceived by German film director and writer Alexander Kluge on 4 September 2018. The screenings will take place from 10 am to 4.30 pm on the first floor of Ca’ Corner della Regina, in the context of the exhibition “Machines à penser”, curated by Dieter Roelstraete and currently on view until 25 November 2018.
Admission to screenings is free and includes the visit to the show, exceptionally open on Tuesday 4 September from 10 am to 6 pm. The program will be introduced by Alexander Kluge at 10 am.
The first part of the program (123 minutes) titled “50 years of Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed” explores the legacy and the importance of Kluge’s film Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: ratlos awarded with the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1968. The movie is interpreted by its director as “an analysis of the 1968 protest movement. The circus as medium is a metaphor of the conflict between the philosophical interpretation of the Critical Theory (“the Marx Brothers of Frankfurt”) and the student uprising”. Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed is combined with five other short films realized by Kluge in 2018.
The second part (123 minutes) of the program includes two new filmic forms recently experimented by Alexander Kluge: the so-called “minute-films” and “minute-operas”. These films explore the themes of pathos, learning and history, also in relation to the exhibition “Machines à penser” which explores the correlation between conditions of exile, escape and retreat and physical or mental places which favor reflection, thought and intellectual production, focusing on three major philosophers of the 20th century: Theodor W. Adorno, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The second part will be completed by Winter of love which documents the contrast between intellectuals and thinkers, such as Theodor W. Adorno and Jürgen Habermas, and the student movement in Frankfurt in 1968.
Alexander Kluge’s film program will be anticipated by two events taking place in Venice in the upcoming days. He will present his new film Happy Lamento, featuring Khavn De La Cruz, on 30 August and 2 September 2018 at the Giornate degli autori during the Venice Film Festival. The event “The Snows of Venice – Theory like swimming in the storm”, devoted to Kluge’s literary and cinematographic work, will be organized by Goethe-Institut Mailand, in collaboration with S.a.L.E. Docks, in Venice on 3 September 2018 at 11 am.
PROGRAM
Part 1 (10 am -1 pm) – 50 years of Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed
1. The circus enters the town (4 min)
2. Police-triptych (5 min)
3. The artists at the top of the big top – perplexed (100 min)
4. Where are all the flowers gone? (12 min)
5. On the death of my sister (2 min)
Part 2 (2 – 4.30 pm) – New Minute-films and Minute-operas
1. “Weep with summer houses and ruins” / “Venice’s golden hair” (3 min)
2. Love/ Intrigue /Poison. Verdi’s Luisa Miller (3 min)
3. All Russia’s souls point their roots heavenwards (3 min)
4. “Opera with hammer and junk” (3 min)
5. Super Heroes und the sopranos of Bellini (6 min)
6. Homage to Anselm Kiefer / “In the rock of signs” (4 min)
7. Mondrian-machine no. 1 (2 min)
8. The Russian female teacher of 1920 (1 min)
9. “Tend to the snow on the fields” (3 min)
10. I am a “bookworm” with Helge Schneider (35 min)
11. Winter of Love. Student movement in September 1968 in Frankfurt (60min)