Guest Curator: Joanna Raczynska
On view: February 11 - March 18, 2006
Opening reception: Saturday, February 11, 7-9 pm

The exhibition NOW AGAIN THE PAST: REWIND REPLAY RESOUND, guest curated by Joanna Raczynska, focuses on the re-telling of historic, political, and cinematic moments by nine national and internationally known media artists. Included in the exhibition are film and video installations by Amie Siegel, Felix Gmelin, Caroline Koebel, Bruce Checefsky, Kota Ezawa, Zach Poff, Anita Di Bianco, Allison Smith and Pia Lindman.

Amie Siegel's BERLIN REMAKE is a series of recent shot-for-shot remakes of exterior East Berlin scenes from DEFA (East German Film Studio) films. Felix Gmelin's FARBTEST, DIE ROTE FAHNE II (COLORTEST, THE RED FLAG NO. 2) utilizes a film the artist's father made in Berlin in 1968 to address the power and implications of political protest then and now. Caroline Koebel's video RE:ACTION brings to life, on the streets of Buffalo today, an iconic still by Austrian artist VALIE EXPORT and Peter Weibel; while Bruce Checefsky's beautiful remake of APTEKA (PHARMACY) by Stefan and Franciszka Themerson breathes life into an important Polish experimental film lost (presumed destroyed) during the Second World War.

Media images are the basis for all the works included in the exhibition. LENNON SONTAG BEUYS by Kota Ezawa transforms snippets of video documentation from speeches delivered by cultural icons John Lennon, Susan Sontag, and Joseph Beuys into vector-based animations that hearken back to classic cartoons; Zach Poff remixes inaugural and farewell speeches by past U.S. presidents with PARALLEL RHETORIC: COMING AND GOING; while Anita Di Bianco's videos BETTY TALKS I + II channels a classic scene from TAXI DRIVER through an Italian actress who then stages her own fame.

LAKONIKON by Pia Lindman is comprised of tracings made by the artist of recent images of mourning published by the New York Times and a video of her performing those still images at public monuments. (Lindman will perform some of these same tracings in the gallery during the opening reception.) And finally, ALLISON SMITH will bring her colorful iconic objects (flags, muskets, and other accoutrements of war) into the gallery space, placing them among the other installations to set the reenactment stage.

A catalogue will accompany the exhibition and a film + video series of classic and new experimental works that use the reenactment as a technique will be held at Hallwalls Cinema in downtown Buffalo, NY from February 15 - April 1.

Included in the screening series will be SHULIE (1997) by Elizabeth Subrin, a reflection on history that 'investigate(s) the mythos and residue of the late 60s'; I'M BOBBY (2004) by Xav Leplae, a reenactment of a classic Bollywood film this time told with child actors; the short film THE TOUCH RETOUCHED (2003) by Marie Losier; LES ORDRES (1974) by Michel Brault, a feature film that subtly blends fiction and documentary realism in a chilling portrait of what can happen to a liberal democracy when the state imposes its power; the classic German anti-Vietnam War film INEXTINGUISHABLE FIRE (1969) by Harun Farocki and Jill Godmilow's shot by shot remake of that work WHAT FAROCKI TAUGHT (1998); and CULLODEN (1964) by Peter Watkins, a documentary-style reenactment of the 1746 Battle of Culloden that turns out to be a timeless critique of imperialism.