Sean Kelly is pleased to announce that S.M.A.K., the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent, will mount Johan Grimonprez's first retrospective to take place in his native Belgium. The exhibition, titled It’s a Poor Sort of Memory that Only Works Backwards: On Zapping, Close Encounters and the Commercial Break, explores the artist's practice as it negotiates the borders between art and cinema, documentary and fiction, practice and theory. The exhibition will be on view from October 15, 2011 through January 8, 2012 and is accompanied by a book, published by Hatje Cantz, composed of collected and newly commissioned texts and interviews.
Inspired by an archaeology of contemporary media, It’s a Poor Sort of Memory that Only Works Backwards features Grimonprez's major works, most notably his award winning films dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997) and DOUBLE TAKE (2009), along with WeTube-o-Theque, an innovative project that unites a curated selection of video clips drawn from the internet, cell phone videos and television and sets them in dialogue with artists and filmmakers Roy Villevoye and Jan Dietvorst. The exhibition will also premiere his most recent film, …because superglue is forever (2011). Envisioned as the joyful affirmation of a global disengagement and a catalyst for conversation and debate, Grimonprez seeks to elicit a double-take within the viewer, to invite him or her to take a pause, and to realize that past and future are mirrors of one another.
For further information on It’s a Poor Sort of Memory that Only Works Backwards at S.M.A.K., please visit: The S.M.A.K. Website
For press inquiries, please contact Maureen Bray at the gallery (212.239.1181) at maureen@skny.com. For all other inquiries, please contact Cécile Panzieri at the gallery (212.239.1181) or at cecile@skny.com.