Whitney Museum of American Art

PIOTR UKLANSKI
SUMMER LOVE
17 OCTOBER - 9 DECEMBER 2007

945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
New York, NY 10021
General Information: 1 (800) WHITNEY

http://www.whitney.org

The first feature film by artist Piotr Uklanski, Summer Love (2006) appropriates one of American popular cinema's most classic genres--the Western--to create an allegorical movie. Uklanski shifts the Wild West frontier of America’s past to the present of post-Communist Eastern Europe. Shot in southern Poland with a mainly Polish cast, the film's stock characters are instantly recognizable to viewers in whose consciousnesses the myth of the American West has been ingrained by the Westerns of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. Yet Uklanski's film is "a copy of a copy," referring to the European Western as much as to the American "original." As Uklanski suggests, "[this work] exploits cinema's most codified genre to address issues of ethnic identity and cultural authenticity." With its impressive cinematography and strong performances, including a cameo by Hollywood star Val Kilmer, Summer Love functions not only as a conceptual statement, but also as a genuine Western, adding to the grand tradition
of the genre.

Summer Love (35mm, 93 min, in English, color, sound) will be screened at the following times:
Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday: 11:30am, 2:45pm.
Friday: 1:30pm, 3:45pm and 6:30pm.