Gallery 9 - Whitechapel Gallery

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Apr 16, 2014 ... which develops his description of the film as a 'photo- roman' ... Exercise book, 27 x 21 cm. Facsimiles: ... Chris Marker, La Jetée: Ciné-Roman.
Chris Marker: A Grin Without a Cat 16 April 2014 – 22 June 2014 Large print labels and interpretation Gallery 9

The works on display in this gallery Memories of Things to Come: The Future-Past of Film, reflect Marker’s conception of cinema as a time machine, as a repository of memory-images, and explores his fascination with the temporal paradoxes of the filmic image, allowing the viewer to travel through 3 dimensions of time as much as to travel in space. This approach is best encapsulated by his influential short science fiction film La Jetée (The Pier) (1962) about ‘a man marked by an image from his childhood’ screened here in a rare version with a different opening sequence from the definitive cut. Shown alongside the film is a series of archival documents, including Marker’s La Jetée workbook, which develops his description of the film as a ‘photoroman’ (photo-novel). In stripping cinematic projection down to its basic element, the still image, La Jetée paradoxically enhances its looped, time-travel narrative. The term ‘future-past’ finds a different expression in each work. Silent Movie (1995) celebrates the creation of cinema and presents Marker’s memories of cinema’s past as a ‘silent’ or a ‘mute’ medium. This five-monitor installation looks back to Constructivist industrial design, and screens black-and-white images from silent films with an accompanying sound track.

The deliberately archaic style of each work co-exists with a sense of futuristic anticipation. Cinema is situated somewhere between the past and the future as a form in continued development.

La Jetée, (The Pier) 1962 Black and white, 35mm, 29 minutes Unique print: an early cut of the film with a different version of the opening scene. © 1963 Argos Films Collection Royal Film Archive, Belgium

Vitrine (From left to right) Facsimiles: first page from La La Jetée Workbook La Jetée Workbook, Undated, Exercise book, 27 x 21 cm Facsimiles: Sequence H from La La Jetée Workbook Facsimiles: Sequence N from La La Jetée Workbook Facsimiles: Sequence O from La La Jetée Workbook Facsimiles: Sequence P from La La Jetée Workbook Facsimiles: Sequence Q from La La Jetée Workbook Collection Royal Film Archive, Belgium

Vitrine Chris Marker and L’Avant-Scene Cinema, ‘La Jetée', L’Avant-Scène Cinéma, June, 1964 Chris Marker, La Jetée: Ciné-Roman Zone Books / MIT Press, New York / Cambridge, MA, 2008, designed byBruce Mau Courtesy Chris Darke

Staring Back Series: They Stare’, 1952–2006 Edition of 3 Selected works from the series: Chilean Mummy, year unknown Black and white photograph mounted on aluminium, 35.2 x 26.7 cm Alexandra Stewart, year unknown Black and white photograph mounted on aluminium, 25.1 x 35.2 cm Ligia Branice, year unknown Black and white photograph mounted on aluminium, 25.1 x 35.2 cm opposite wall: ‘Staring Back Series: I Stare 2’, 1952–2006 William Klein and wife Jeanine, year unknown Black and white photograph mounted on Aluminium, 27.3 x 35.2 cm, edition of 3 Chris Marker Estate Courtesy Peter Blum Gallery, New York

Please return large print to the gallery assistant