The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer
The Pendulum, the Pit, and Other Oddities

Opening: September 3, 2011 7:00 p.m.
Duration: 4.09.– 16. 10. 2011

The Czech animation filmmaker Jan Švankmajer (*1934), is one of the internationally most renowned practitioners within the genre, but yet unknown in the art scene. The spectrum of his creative activity ranges from political films to lyrical works and works based on adaptations of literature, and on to lyrical explorations of his filmic material. His shorter films, often leaning towards the surreal, dissolve logical contexts of meaning, construing, instead, weird, dreamlike stories that appear to exist outside the confines of space and time. He breathes life into dead matter, and goes in search of those morbid traits in the living that suggest the dark side of existence, the uncanny, and the labyrinthine ways of the psyche. These unfamiliar perspectives give birth to incomparable, fairytale-like satires.

The exhibition will feature films by the artist such as Alice (1988) and Faust (1994) as well as his drawings and installations.
The exhibition will also be shown at Kunsthalle Wien.
Curator Dr. Gerald Matt, Director, Kunsthalle Wien
A catalog with an interview with Jan Švankmajer conducted by Gerald Matt will be published on the occasion of the exhibition.