Faster Than Ever Film Programme

Ikon presents a winter film programme, organised to coincide with the gallery’s exhibition Faster Than Ever. All films available to watch via Ikon’s website and YouTube channel.

4 – 10 December 2020
Beat Streuli
Pallasades (2001)
Video, silent. 45 minutes

Pallasades (2001) by acclaimed Swiss artist Beat Streuli, was commissioned by Ikon and first screened as part of a group exhibition, Birmingham, in 2001. It was then included in an off-site project close to the city’s Pallasades Shopping Centre. In the work, everyone appears purposeful, walking forwards, talking into mobile phones, taking photos, carrying stuff, chatting with friends. Together they reflect a globalised culture with a cosmopolitan mix, characteristic of Birmingham.

11 – 17 December 2020
Alice Cattaneo
1 minute 41 seconds (2007), The Singer (2004), Variable Dimensions (2007), Passaggi, Untitled One, Untitled Two (2007)
Video, sound. Various durations

In this series of short videos, artist Alice Cattaneo interacts with everyday settings and situations. A farmer’s field becomes a playful landscape. Structures are manipulated and assembled. The rapid passing of kitchen equipment creates a dynamic exchange.

18 December 2020 – 3 January 2021
Grace Ndiritu
The Nightingale (2003)
Video, sound. 7 minutes

The beginning of the video is peaceful and serene, showing British Kenyan artist Grace Ndiritu slowly moving a cloth that covers her head and shoulders. Each of the artist’s actions references another identity, the fabric performing the function of blindfold, hijab, headscarf, burka, veil, bandanna, purdah, gag and turban.

4 – 10 January 2021
Ivan Morison
Colours and Sounds in Ivan Morison’s Garden (2002)
Video, sound. 7 minutes 30 seconds

In Colours and Sounds in Ivan Morison’s Garden (2002), the artist tends to his allotment unashamedly naked in bucolic bliss.

11 – 17 January 2021
Ann Veronica Janssens
Oscar (2012)
Video, silent. 15 minutes

In this film, Belgium artist Ann Veronica Janssens portrays Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer at the age of 104. Filmed in real time, we are drawn into speculation of what this man – a personification of modernism, whose buildings have shaped countless lives – could possibly be thinking. 

18 – 24 January 2021
Julie Brook
Pigment (2013)
Video, sound. 8 minutes 30 seconds

Brook has consistently used raw pigment in her drawings and sculptural work. In Namibia she was introduced to the way in which the Himba women use pigment rubbed onto their skin. This has both an aesthetic and protective value for them.

Through an unexpected meeting with three young Himba women in Otjize, Brook was able to collect the red pigment with them. She has continued to do so each consecutive year that she has worked in Namibia. The women use the same techniques as Brook, crushing and grinding the pigment. Brook uses it dry, whilst the Himba women mix it with animal fat and aromatic plants.

25 – 31 January 2021
David Theobald
Deepest Sympathy (2011)
Digital animation. 3 minutes 48 seconds

In this short video by British artist David Theobald, a biography is conveyed through the medium of greetings cards. Beginning at birth, they mark all of life’s loves, successes and tragedies: childhood birthdays, exam passes, career development, marriage, birth, divorce, retirement and death.

1 – 7 February 2021
Edmund Clark
Oresteia (2017)
3-channel video, sound. 1 hour 14 minutes

British artist Edmund Clark was Ikon’s artist-in-residence at HM Prison Grendon (2014 –2018). He collaborated with the psychodrama department on a filmed response to The Oresteia, a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BC. The work explores the relationship between narratives of extreme violence in high culture and contemporary society though the process of catharsis that is present in Greek Tragedy and the therapeutic processes of psychodrama at Grendon.

The film is a one-off, unedited exchange between characters from The Oresteia, represented by the psychodrama staff as perpetrators, victims and witnesses, and prisoners from Grendon who identify with these themes in relation to their lives, crimes and therapeutic histories. All the participants are masked in keeping with the traditions of Greek Tragedy and for reasons of security and anonymity required by the Ministry of Justice. This requirement also necessitated the mosaic redaction of close-up images of prisoners. The piece was originally installed as a three-monitor installation on a circle of chairs used for group therapy taken from HM Prison Grendon.

8 – 14 February 2021
Kate Groobey
Give Me What I Want (2018)
Video, sound. 2 minutes 10 seconds

In this video, British artist Kate Groobey dances as different painted characters against landscape backdrops, accompanied by an upbeat soundtrack. Give Me What I Want is a playful feminist response to the many art historical paintings that depict the female nude in landscapes.