The film work of Daniel Young and Christian Giroux—recently the subject of a retrospective at The Rooms in St. John’s—has been largely conceptual, taking the form of silent installations in which motion has been either drastically reduced or approached programmatically. Berlin 2012/1983 continues the artists’ preoccupation with the built environment, documenting architectural construction in Berlin and pairing new buildings with those erected during the era of the divided city. Described by the artists as a “rigorous dérive,” the installation situates itself firmly in a spatio-temporal realm, straddling significant geopolitical events but offering no overt commentary on them. Rather, Young and Giroux take a formal approach that foregrounds the rhythmic, serial presentation of images—a metaphor, perhaps, for the medium itself.
Although their practice involves shooting in 35mm, it is rare that the artists are able to exhibit their films in this format. A collaboration with TIFF has enabled them to project on film using projectors that have been modified to project in synch at less than four frames per second. With the film’s movement thus diminished, the work both demands our prolonged attention and provokes a contemplation of the medium of film, its texture and tactility as well as its limits.
Commissioned by TIFF, the Goethe-Institut Toronto and Ed Video, this exhibition is free to view in the HSBC Gallery at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto from June 12 to August 23, 2015.
For more information, please visit http://tiff.net/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/young-and-giroux-berlin