PLASTIK SCREENING & TALK: THE FILMS OF DAVID GATTEN

A rare screening of 16mm works presented in conversation with the artist.

DAVID GATTEN has since 1995 been producing one of the more justly celebrated bodies of work in contemporary moving-image practice, bridging a persistent gap between the worlds of ‘experimental film’ and ‘artists’ moving image’. His work has appeared in film festivals, Whitney Biennials, a number of solo and group exhibitions, and a recent critics’ poll devoted to avant-garde practice placed him among the top ten ‘filmmakers’ working today. His work speaks to a tradition of practice that takes in luminaries like Stan Brakhage and Hollis Frampton, but his films are now as likely to be seen in a gallery or museum as they are a purpose built cinema. Gatten himself evades the distinctions between these modes of practice, a link on his website offering us the uncomplicated descriptor ‘DAVID GATTEN makes moving images’.

The work Gatten has produced to date describes a complexity of intersections between the written or printed word and the moving-image, a place in which ‘text’ always functions as both language and image. Initially these enquiries were made exclusively in relation to the medium of film but recently David has begun to incorporate the possibilities of the digital. When possible David travels and appears alongside his films, as a result his work has been less frequently seen in Europe, his presence at PLASTIK marks a significant break in this regard, the possibility of a rare and intimate introduction to his work and unique work to the evolving art of the moving-image.
THE FILMS OF DAVID GATTEN will not only feature the European premiere of Extravagant Shadows but also a retrospective of 16mm works accompanied by a discussion with the filmmaker himself.