Aleksandra Czerniawska's reconstructed photo for the Vertov Temporary Museum
At the Cinema Museum in Odessa Polish artist Aleksandra Czerniawska presents another installment of her project on Dziga Vertov, the Białystok-born forerunner of modern cinema
The Vertov Temporary Museum is a fictional reconstruction of the letters, notes and photos of the famous filmmaker. When Aleksandra Czerniawska began working on her project, she found it very hard to find any archival documentation on the director behind Man with a Movie Camera. She found only one facsimile of a storyboard frame on the internet.
The drawings in the exhibition are accompanied by artificially aged manuscripts and photographs that make up the "museum" – a story about the life and work of the pioneer artist. Czerniawska also takes on the role of an imaginary character in the Vertov narration, accompanying the director, standing beside him in the reconstructed pictures, and appearing on the margins of a fictitious story.
Monika Szewczyk, curator of the Vertov Temporary Museum and director of the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, explains:
If Vertov's work is known mostly to cinema lovers, they seldom realise that he was born in Białystok [in present-day Poland]. Aleksandra Czerniawska, who herself comes from this city, has proposed a multi-layered game with the legacy of the artist.
Czerniawska comments on her exhibition:
I started working on the project in 2008, and the immediate impulse for its implementation was the fact that Dziga Vertov was born in Białystok. And yet, the city lacks virtually any memorable places related to him.
The director's most recognised film is devoid of any verbal commentary. It is a poetic portrait of Odessa in the 1920s, which depicts the city from early dawn until the late night hours. Vertov employed many solutions which at the time we considered revolutionary. He would accelarate and then slow down the images, hold certain frames still, divide the screen, jump abruptly to a different take, or use close-ups. His camera is one that is constantly moving, as it follows people who are busy with their everyday life.
Vertov was a pioneer of documentary cinema. He considered the document to be an art-form and made it a field of courageous and innovative experiments. I nspite of his taste for playing around with editing, Vertov maintained that the idea of showing the truth and observing life in its pure form remained a priority for the artist. He believed in the supremacy of the film camera over the human eye. The Man with a Movie Camera is both an experimental and documentative piece.This project was presented in the places connected with Vertov's biography, which creates another level of this quasi-historic intrigue. It was presented in Białystok where he was born and raised, and in St. Petersburg where he studied. It would be a very great adventure to travel along his pathways to Odessa where he created his best-known film Man with a Movie Camera.
Dziga Vertov (1896-1954) was born as David Abelevich Kaufman. He began his musical studies at the Białystok conservatory. He and his family left the city in 1915 and settled first in Moscow and later in St. Petersburg. He went on to become one of the most influential filmmakers and theorists. Made in 1929, Man with a Movie Camera is still considered to be one of the cornerstones of soviet cinema.
Aleksandra Czerniawska studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2003-2008) and the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart (2007). She is a painter, artist, photographer and installation artist.
Curator: Monika Szewczyk.
Organisers: Galeria Arsenał in Białystok, Polish Institute in Kiev.
The Vertov Temporary Museum exhibition is on between the 12th and 18th of June, 2012 at the Museum of Cinema in Odessa, Ukraine.
For more information, please visit: galeria-arsenal.pl/
Editor: Roberto Galea
Source: press release