Catalogue > At random

Johan Grimonprez

I MAY HAVE LOST FOREVER MY UMBRELLA

Film expérimental | hdcam | couleur | 2:54 | Belgique | 2011

In the spring of 2011, during the Photomonth in Krakow, the artist collective Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin invited me to be part of ALIAS, an exhibition with artists who inhabit alternative versions of themselves. An artist and a writer were teamed up with the aim to create a non-existent third persona. The outcome was that none of the artists in the exhibition existed, as those fictional characters took over the creative process. I was assigned to inhabit the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. ?Him and his 240 heteronyms,? Broomberg and Chanarin laughed, ?an idea not unfamiliar to you!? And indeed, Fernando Pessoa wrote much of his oeuvre under multiple, alternative identities. Not so much pseudonyms or aliases but what he termed ?heteronyms,? invented personalities with detailed biographies and interweaving histories. More specifically Pessoa?s ?The Book of Disquiet? became then the point of departure for this film project. All the footage was shot on iPhone recapturing selected details from YouTube endless growing archive, a world where ?heteronyms? abound. Images of the earthquake and the tsunami that recently hit Japan in March that year dominating the net, resonated quietly with the world of disquiet I was envisioning. In addition, I imagined an added female voice to Pessoa?s many male heteronyms while also staying true to the original language of ?The Book of Disquiet?. So, I invited Portuguese writer Isabel Sobral Campos to narrate the selected passages.

Johan Grimonprez is an internationally acclaimed artist and filmmaker. His films include Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997), and Double Take (2009). Acquisitioned by NBC UNIVERSAL, ARTE TV (Germany/France), and CHANNEL 4 (UK), his productions traveled the main festival circuit from SUNDANCE to BERLIN. They garnered several Best Director Awards, a ZKM International Media Award, a Spirit Award and the recent 2009 Black Pearl Award (Abu Dhabi). His curatorial projects were host at museums worldwide, such as the HAMMER MUSEUM (LA) and the PINAKOTHEK DER MODERNE (Munchen). His work resides at major museum collections, including CENTRE GEORGES POMPIDOU (Paris) and TATE MODERN (London). He is published with Hatje/Cantz (Germany), and in distribution with Soda Pictures and Kino International. He spends his time between Brussels and New York, where he lectures at the SCHOOL OF THE VISUAL ARTS.