Antje Ehmann Bücher

The exhibition and publication "The Physiognomy of Power" consider the oeuvres of the German filmmaker Harun Farocki and the Austrian graphic artist and painter Florentina Pakosta from a common perspective. Whereas Farocki has been one of the most important documentary filmmakers and media artists of Germany since the 1970s, Pakosta is one of the central figures in the feminist avant-garde of Austria and a notable representative of politically critical drawing, graphic art and painting. The critical thought of the two artists is rooted in the German and Austrian postwar eras. It directs an analytical, documentary, satirical and narrational, but in any case oppositional focus towards the structures for imposing domination and the mechanisms for preserving power in politics, economics, culture, and society. There are two aspects which, in spite of all diversity, unite the oeuvres of Farocki and Pakosta: on the one hand, their relentless critique of power; and on the other hand, the language that they chose for this purpose in their respective media-the language of a critical realism.

This collection of essays offers a critical assessment of Labour in a Single Shot, a groundbreaking documentary video workshop. From 2011 to 2014, curator Antje Ehmann and film- and video-maker Harun Farocki produced an art project of truly global proportions. They travelled to fifteen cities around the world to conduct workshops inspired by cinema history’s first film, Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, shot in 1895 by the Lumière brothers in France. While the workshop videos are in colour and the camera was not required to remain static, Ehmann and Farocki’s students were tasked with honouring the original Lumière film’s basic parameters of theme and style. The fascinating result is a collection of more than 550 short videos that have appeared in international exhibitions and on an open-access website, offering the widest possible audience the opportunity to ponder contemporary labour in multiple contexts around the world.

"Compiles artistic and analytical practices that expand thought on cinema ... thematizes archetypes and recurring patterns in film history ... with contributions from cultural history, philosophy, and film theory"--Blurb.