Peter Friedl
Who if not we…?, episode 4: OUT OF THE SHADOWS
Witte de With | Center for Contemporary Art
WITTE DE WITH, center for contemporary art PETER FRIEDL
Who if not we?, episode 4:
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
Part of a series of projects on (ex)changing Europe ON VIEW UNTIL JAN. 9, 2005
Witte de With, center for contemporary art
Witte de Withstraat 50, 3012 BR Rotterdam, The Netherlands,
tel. +31 (0)10 411 01 44, fax +31 (0)10 411 79 24, e-mail: info@wdw.nl www.wdw.nl
“The installation of Friedl is rich and complex, and can be read in various ways”
Janneke Wesseling, NRC-Handelsblad, 8-12-2004
OUT OF THE SHADOWS is the result of an aesthetic research by Peter Friedl focussing on the political and socio-historical situation in Cyprus. The exhibition takes place on the first floor of Witte de With, center for contemporary art, and includes various DVD installations, Greek and Turkish shadow theater puppets, and a text piece.
In OUT OF THE SHADOWS, Peter Friedl uses the exhibition as a medium. The informative part of the project functions as a set-up to emphasize and discuss the cultural codes of an institution like Witte de With.
No Photography, 2004
Computer animation, DVD installation
This piece is related to the way no photography areas are commonly represented.
Playgrounds (Cyprus), 2004
DVD installation
The slide series Playgrounds (Cyprus) documents “from below” the state of affairs after decades of social amnesia.
Poppen en Broodjes, 2004
Cardboard, metal, paper, photocopies
Puppet figures based on models from the history of Cyprus; created during public workshops in Rotterdam. Featuring: Caterina Cornaro, Rauf Denktas, Giorgos Grivas, Archbishop Makarios, a Filipino maid, a mosque, stars above Cyprus, a British military vehicle and soldiers.
Exodus, 1960, directed by Otto Preminger
70 mm film, video transfer, excerpt
After World War II, illegal Jewish migration to Palestine (Aliyah Bet) increased dramatically. The deportation of 4,515 displaced persons, who arrived in Palestine aboard the refugee ship “Exodus 47″ and were then sent back via France by the British, to finally arrive at an internment camp in Lubeck, Germany, in September 1947, became a successful media event. Played before an international audience it helped to speed up the decision-making process in favor of founding a Jewish state.
Based on the 1958 best-selling novel of the same name by U.S. author Leon Uris, Otto Preminger’s feature film Exodus attempts to provide a pre-modern explanation for a modern political community: the birth of a state-at the end of the film- as the “birth of a nation.” The film had a great influence on U.S. perceptions and understanding of what is known as the Middle East conflict.
The first part of the three-and-a-half-hour epic-starring: Jill Haworth, Sal Mineo, Paul Newman, Ralph Richardson, Eva Marie Saint-is about the displaced persons held by the British in detention camps in Cyprus. The shooting was done at the original sites with camp settings-at a historical moment when the island colony had just achieved their independence and the Republic of Cyprus was founded.
Che cosa sono le nuvole? [What are the clouds?], 1967, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
35 mm film, video transfer, excerpt
This short film was created in March and April, 1967, as an episode for Capriccio all’italiana. Pasolini transforms Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello (located in Cyprus) into a laconic Italian puppet-show comedy with live marionettes embedded in a sub plot. After Uccellacci e uccellini (1965) and the short film La terra vista dalla luna (1966), it was Pasolini’s third and final collaboration with the popular actor Toto (Antonio De Curtis), who died immediately after the shooting of the film. Toto, who was nearly blind at the time, plays Iago. Ninetto Davoli can be seen as Othello and Laura Betti as Desdemona.
What is written cannot be unwritten, 2004
17 ink-jet prints, 84 x 118,8 cm each
The first versions of these dictionary texts were written in English, German, Greek or Turkish by: Rebecca Bryant, Thomas Diez, Peter Friedl, Niels Kadritzke, Andys Loizides, Nick Mamatas, Linda Myrsiades, Canan Oztoprak, Yiannis Papadakis, John Tirman, Yiannis Trimithiotis, and Stella-Maria Vassiliou.
OUT OF THE SHADOWS is part of the visual art programme Who if not we? of Thinking Forward, the cultural programme for the Dutch presidency of the European Union in 2004. Thinking Forward consists of a variety of cultural activities in the Netherlands as well in the ten new member states of the EU. The programme is an initiative of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and is commissioned by the Fund for Amateur Art and Performing Arts and the Mondriaan Foundation.
Who if not we? consists of seven new exhibitions and a number of additional projects throughout Europe. The main motivation of this programme is to discuss how art can participate in current social and political change.
For further information about our activities please visit our website: www.wdw.nl
Witte de With, center for contemporary art
Witte de Withstraat 50, 3012 BR Rotterdam, The Netherlands,
tel. +31 (0)10 411 01 44, fax +31 (0)10 411 79 24, e-mail: info@wdw.nl
Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 11 a.m – 6 p.m.
Closed: December 25 and January 1
