[rohrpost] º*¨¨*º The Delicate Landscape of Crisis - Chrsitina McPhee - Friday at Freies Museum Berlin º*¨¨*º

[richfilm productions]

Directors Lounge on Friday at a different 
location in Schöneberg, and with an amazing 
artist from California: Christina McPhee

Directors Lounge Special Screening:

CHRISTINA MCPHEE
The Delicate Landscape of Crisis
Friday, 15 April, 2011
21:00
at REMISE
FREIES MUSEUM BERLIN
Potsdamer Strasse 91
10785 Berlin-Schöneberg


A premier survey of California-based McPhee's 
experimental films from 2002-2011 will screen 
Friday at Freies Museum, Berlin 
http://www.freies-museum.com/

Christina McPhee's video work is made of combined 
textures, colors and details of the landscapes 
she is exploring. The flow and beauty of her kind 
of compositing lies in its immersive qualities, 
which may even become hypnotic. The colorful 
layered textures the artist is creating with 
video are not unlike her paintings, composed by 
layers of expressive drawing lines.

The artist is specifically exploring landscapes 
of destruction and landscapes that are shaped by 
large technological installations for energy 
production. San Ardo Oil Fields in Monterey 
County is a place for one of her videos, it is 
the biggest area of oil explorations in 
California. The film is a composition in red. 
Landscape, nature, moving oil pumps and spills of 
water, are combined with footage of Carolee 
Schneeman's famous 1964 performance 'Meat Joy.' 
Oil spills (of paint) on canvas, on bodies and on 
natural soil become one of a kind for the viewer. 
("Meat Oil Joy Paint: A Tribute to Carolee 
Schneemann " (2010).

One may think, that the kind of beauty Christina 
McPhee creates and the subject of her films 
contradict each other. The artist however would 
respond, that it is exactly this kind of 
contradiction she is aiming for. Living on the 
Californian coast close to Big Sur, a scenic area 
where many artists and writers found retreat to 
create work in the past, Christina has been 
sensitized for the scale of man-made destruction 
happening in so called remote natural sites, and 
for the contradictions of modern civilization 
spreading into areas of rough nature, including 
deserts, swamps and geological active zones. "I 
am opportunistic too. I shoot what I find. It is 
a kind of guerilla filmmaking." The sign 
“forbidden to photograph" just triggers her 
interest, and makes her find ways around for both 
shooting the swamps on the North American coast, 
affected by the oil disaster from the oil 
platform Deepwater Horizon ("Deep Horizon", 2010) 
and the area of destruction called "Ground Zero" 
in Manhattan, N.Y. ("Seven After Eleven", 2008). 
"I never ask for permission." The recorded 
footage to her then becomes material for her art. 
"Video has some material quality like painting." 
She focuses on details and nuances as indicators 
of massive environmental change.

Christina McPhee believes in the power of 
visualization. The artist searches for layers of 
future possibilities, latent in the very places 
of crisis that seem most desperate. In this 
respect, the material aesthetic and beauty of her 
films point to a chance for transformation even 
in the most traumatic sites.
Christina McPhee comes to Berlin for this 
screening and will be happy to discuss her films 
with you.
Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr


http://www.directorslounge.net
http://www.freies-museum.com/

More infos, images and complete text:
http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/index.html

with support from Walden http://www.galerie-walden.de/
and Galerie Suomesta http://www.suomestagalleria.net/
-- 
richfilm productions, Klaus W. Eisenlohr, Osnabrücker Str. 25, D-10589 Berlin

eMail Adresse: 		office at richfilm.de
Homepage !!!		http://www.kw-eisenlohr.de
Film Produktion:		http://www.richfilm.de

Telefon:			int.- 49 - (0)30 - 3409 5343 (BERLIN)