Peter Greenaway

Heavy Water – Peter Greenaway

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Tel Aviv

22 October – 3 December 2011

The famous British filmmaker and artist Peter Greenaway presents a new, spectacular project Heavy Water, a multimedia project by Change Performing Arts, which was especially planned for Chelouche Gallery’s unique exhibit halls in Israel.
After showing projects such as the 9 Classic Paintings Revisited and Leonardo’s last supper in solo exhibitions as well as famous international art events like the Venice Biennale and Expo Shanghai, Greenaway now celebrate World Première in Israel.

He is known for his unique avant-garde approach and  his cinematic work has been praised by the critics. Many of his films have become cult classics. Greenaway explores and experiments in new artistic fields: He likes to probe the boundaries of different media types, challenge his audience and he spurs  philosophical debates regarding the role of art in the contemporary world and in our lives in general.
Greenaway’s new project Heavy Water is a theatrical and dramatic mix of sound, painting, drawing and video, accompanied by the publication of an art book. It elicits apocalyptic thoughts and contains an ostensibly prophetic warning concerning nuclear proliferation and the future of our planet.

„In the last decade, global warming, changing meteorological patterns, melting ice-caps and deepening seas have re-alerted our respectful contemplation of water. Most of the paintings in this catalogue were made in a house in Amsterdam not far from the North Sea, and evidence is gathering that this house will be swept away by floods before the year 2035. The events in this year of 2011 in Japan have disturbed us all and brought vividly to our attention, the thin veneer of our control over water.“ Peter Greenaway

For further information see http://www.chelouchegallery.com/exhibitionsCurrent.php

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Framing the World — An art & ecology notebook

Excerpted From Cathy Fitzgerald’s An Art & Ecology Notebook:

Twelve essays  in four parts, focusing on ecocinema as activist cinema; the representation of environmental justice issues in Hollywood; independent and foreign films, the representation of animals, ecosystems, natural and human-made landscapes and readings of two mainstream eco-auteurs, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Peter Greenaway, Framing the World; explorations in ecocriticism and film, edited by Paula Willoquet-Maricondi, 2010

At last, a book on ecocriticism for film that is more than a review of films with environmental themes (though there are so very few of the latter as well). Lots of very valuable and timely essays on both mainstream cinema but also identifying key experimental filmmakers who have developed ecocentric approaches to film-making, for eg. in the work of independent Slovenian film/sound artist Andrej Zdravic. Also an excellent chapter on the very real limitations and lack of critical awareness in the director Herzog’s popularly regarded environmental films.

Also of note and just published this year is ‘Chinese Ecocinema in the Age of Environmental Challenge‘. I think its great to have this perspective of film from a region that has endured vast ecological destruction and is producing many poignant environmental films. This book is much more academic but again an excellent resource for those interested in the critical development of ecocinema. It’s also made me eager to search out the films mentioned in the book, like this one centered on  the 3 Gorges dam – ‘Still Life’

via Framing the World -two timely new books on ecocriticism and film — An art & ecology notebook.