French-Israeli artist Absalon (1964-1993) died before realizing his radical ‘life project’, his six Cellules (cells). To be located in the cities of Paris, Zurich, New York, Tel Aviv, Frankfurt/Main, and Tokyo, these minimal homes incorporated a monastic spirit while referencing Le Corbusier’s idea of a ‘machine for living’. Meticulously planned, each cell was designed around the basic individual needs of the artist himself. While the project might be seen as an anti-social protest, a reduction of the utopian aims of early modern architecture to the level of individual subjectivity, it possesses a rare artistic clarity.
Since Absalon’s early death in 1993, his cells can be found in important museum collections (Centre Pompidou, Paris, New Tate, London, De Appel, Amsterdam) where they no longer maintain their purpose, nor their effects. Cedric Venail’s first film shows Absalon explaining his project during a slideshow in 1993, articulates the details of the houses, and uses speculative sequences to explore their enigmatic meaning in their projected locations. The result is a beautifully photographed and inventive approach towards an unfinished art project.
The film A Virus in the City will be screened in the presence and in conversation with filmmaker Cédric Venail, as a special program on occasion of the Absalon retrospective at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin and in collaboration with DOKU.ARTS, the international festival for films on art.
A Virus in the City
Screening: Saturday, 15.01.2011, 9 pm
Zeughauskino
Deutsches Historisches Museum
Unter den Linden 2
10117 Berlin
France 2008, 80 min. Video (French, English subtitles)
Original Title: Un Virus Dans La Ville
Director / Screenplay: Cédric Venail
Cinematography: Simon Beaufils, Laurent Desmet
Sound: Marc Parazon, Edouard Morin
Editing: Cedric Venail
Production: Cedric Venail for Huckleberry Films
