Harun Farocki
(B.1944, Nový Jicin (Neutitschein), Czechoslovakia // D.Berlin, 2014)26.11.14
Harun Farocki
Filmoteca de Catalunya. Double session: 'Nicht löschbares Feuer' & 'What Farocki Taught', with presentation by Jill Godmilow and Mireia Sallarès.
Wednesday 26/11/2014 - 18:30 h.
Filmoteca de Catalunya: Sala Laya
The title of the exhibition by the Catalan artist Mireia Sallarès is taken from the film by the American filmmaker Jill Godmilow about Harun Farocki - What Farocki Taught. In that film, Godmillow created a perfect replica of the document Farocki produced for German television in 1969, about the manufacture of the napalm gas bomb that was used in the Vietnam War, entitled Inextinguishable Fire.
Godmilow was both captivated by the film's subject matter, and angry at its lack of distribution in the United States, and produced the replica some years later with the author's permission, so that the film could be screened in the United States. Ironically, it was Godmillow's film which led to Farocki, an internationally renowned cult filmmaker, gaining real recognition in the USA.
Mireia Sallarès conducted an unpublished interview with Godmilow in New York in the autumn of 2013, in which Godmilow reflected on this process and other events in her politically committed life, in which she talks about artists' commitment, and which is a gesture of recognition to another author.
The video of the interview is the centrepiece of this exhibition at Arts Santa Mònica, which also includes other material by the American filmmaker and a series of screenings of some of Jill Godmillow's films at the Filmoteca de Catalunya.
Tags: exhibition, barcelona, screening
Film still. "Inestinguishable Fire"(1969) by Harun Farocki.