German video art in the Russian Museum

The program “German video art in the Russian Museum” is organized in cooperation with Goethe-Institut and “Video-Forum” (Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin). The curators have selected eight pieces of art of video artists from Germany and other countries.

Revolutionary videograms (Videogramme einer Revolution), 1992

Harun Farocki (born in Neutitschein, 1944 - died in Berlin , 2014)

Andrei Ujica (born in Timişoara, 1952, lives in Berlin)

In his art Harun Farocki, renown documentary film director, reflects upon contemporary political and social history, criticizing the society of control and its institutions and analyzing the role of media nowadays. “Revolutionary videograms” were created together with Andrei Ujica on the grounds of Romanian state television records after its capture by the demonstrators in December 1989 as well as with use of amateur films made during the revolutionary protests in Bucharest and Timişoara. Romanian revolution was among the first where the television played key role. On 22 December 1989 demonstrators captured the state television and broadcasted the reportages on the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime, including the judicial process and the execution of the dictator and his wife. Farocki used to say that in the films the story tells itself, becoming the material and the protagonist at the same time. The director paid specific attention to the montage: reconstruction of the chronological order of the events is combined with the film-narration and meditation upon the ways of telling the story in the film. The critics compared “Revolutionary videograms” with Sergei Eisenstein’s “October”.

July 28 the lecture of Maria Godovannaya, feminist social theory expert, "Harun Farocki's Videograms" will take place (in Russian).