National Museum of Contemporary Art, MNAC, Bucharest
Josef Dabernig. Films.
(featuring G.R.A.M. and Markus Scherer)
26 April - 1 September


This film selection presented how in Bucharest contains works done by Josef Dabernig between 1996 (Wisla) and 2005 (Lancia Thema). The films can be read like a layered narrative of different contexts, not necessarily explaining them but working with the tension generated by their internal contradictions. The script is constructed similar to Dabernig's minimalist architecture interventions and grid structures, using rational methods to organize camera movements, tempo, actions - but at the same time considering imperfections, absences or lapses. His characters are performing usual, familiar gestures in a repetitive yet fragmented, disrupted way.
( Florin Tudor, curator )

The work of Josef Dabernig sometimes seems to be a sort of personal archaeology of modernity. It displays an admiration for the utopian and rational, but also a certain pleasure at gaps, mismatches and failures in such ideally conceived structures. It is important that he sees modernity as marked by contradictions and as heterogeneous in spite of its claims for universality. Admiration for the rational forms and structures of modernity and a certain obsession with them are always combined with an ironic and distanced attitude.
( Igor Zabel, 2003 )


List of films:

Wisla
1996, 16mm to DVD, b/w, 8 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig
Camera: Thomas Baumann
Editing and Sound: Josef Dabernig, Martin Kaltner
Cast: Josef Dabernig, Martin Kaltner, Emil Brix, Jerzy Fedorowicz, Ludwik Mietta-Mikolajewicz, Rembert Schleicher


Timau
1998, 16mm to DVD, b/w, 20 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig, Markus Scherer
Camera: Christian Giesser
Cast: Josef Dabernig, Wolfgang Dabernig, Markus Scherer, Marino Grassi, Cesira Leschiutta


Jogging
2000, 35mm to DVD, colour, 11 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig
Camera: Christian Giesser
Music: Olga Neuwirth


WARS
2001, 16mm to DVD, b/w, 10 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig
Camera: Christian Giesser
Cast: Josef Dabernig, Ingeburg Wurzer, Otto Zitko


automatic
2002, 16mm to DVD, b/w, 7 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig, G.R.A.M.
Camera: Christian Giesser
Editing: Volker Sernetz, XXKunstkabel
Cast: Martin Behr, Josef Dabernig, Günther Holler-Schuster, Gerhard Peckary
Music: Binder&Krieglstein


Rosa coeli
2003, 35mm to DVD, b/w, 24 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig
Words: Bruno Pellandini
Voice: Branko Samarovski
Camera: Christian Giesser
Sound design: Michael Palm
Cast: Wolfgang Dabernig, Kurt Fellinger, Thomas Schmid, Josef Dabernig


Lancia Thema
2005, 35mm to DVD, colour, 17 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig
Camera: Christian Giesser
Sound design: Michael Palm
Cast: Josef Dabernig

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