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Jeff Preiss, STOP, 1995–2012, 16mm transferred to SD video, colour, sound, 120 min
Jeff Preiss’ feature-length chronicle STOP is distilled from 2,500 100-ft camera rolls of 16mm film shot between 1995 and 2011. The film operates around the conventions of home movies: the footage is from Preiss’ own life, and covers the alternating subjects of family, friends and travel.
I took it as a self-imposed rule to preserve this camera-originated chronology – in part to keep the reference to film present after a digital conversion – but, more essentially, to find a montage restricted to the perspectival axis of time, giving its organization an equivalent to the fated randomness that operates within each individual shot once the camera is engaged.
Subjects repeat in cycles while others form isolated episodes: London during Princess Diana’s funeral, an investigation of architectural cinematography commissioned by Rem Koolhaas, the founding and three-year program of the gallery ORCHARD, the shocked atmosphere of New York City after September 11. But in classic home-movie tradition, the central subject is my child.
Among the 'stops' referred to in the title, one was the act of assigning a limit to the accumulating mass of my personal archive so that a finished film could be shaped. But many other ends were concurrent: The end of celluloid film as a production default, the end of the 4:3 SD film-to-video standard, and the end of a numeric set as I approached camera-roll #2500. The most convincing was also the most typical: the self-conscience end of my child’s prepubescence – in this case coinciding with a decisive transformation of gender expression.
Subjects repeat in cycles while others form isolated episodes: London during Princess Diana’s funeral, an investigation of architectural cinematography commissioned by Rem Koolhaas, the founding and three-year program of the gallery ORCHARD, the shocked atmosphere of New York City after September 11. But in classic home-movie tradition, the central subject is my child.
Among the 'stops' referred to in the title, one was the act of assigning a limit to the accumulating mass of my personal archive so that a finished film could be shaped. But many other ends were concurrent: The end of celluloid film as a production default, the end of the 4:3 SD film-to-video standard, and the end of a numeric set as I approached camera-roll #2500. The most convincing was also the most typical: the self-conscience end of my child’s prepubescence – in this case coinciding with a decisive transformation of gender expression.
– Jeff Preiss, 2007
STOP is selected by Ghislaine Leung to coincide with the artist’s exhibition CONSTITUTION at Chisenhale Gallery, 25 January – 24 March 2019.
Jeff Preiss is a New York-based experimental filmmaker. His work has been widely presented in international festival and museum contexts. He has co-authored collaborations with artists including Joan Jonas, Andrea Fraser, Leslie Thornton and Anthony McCall. He has been director of photography on many projects including Bruce Weber’s Let’s Get Lost (1988). He was co-founder of ORCHARD, a cooperatively organised gallery in New York's Lower East Side. His newest film, 14 STANDARD 8mm REELS will be presented at MoMA this Spring.
Ghislaine Leung is a London-based artist and writer. Recent solo projects include VIOLETS, Netwerk, Aalst; Local Studies, Reading International, Reading; The Moves, Cell Project Space, London; 078746844, Wiels, Brussels. Her first collection of writings, Partners was published by Cell Project Space in 2018 and her second publication with Divided is forthcoming in 2019. Upcoming solo exhibitions include Chisenhale Gallery, London; Essex Street, New York; and Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (all 2019).
06:45 pm
Wed, 06 Mar 2019
Cinema 1
This screening will be introduced by Jeff Preiss and Ghislaine Leung.
All films are ad-free and 18+ unless otherwise stated, and start with a 10 min. curated selection of trailers.
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