Harun Farocki: The ultimately triumphal rise of the sharp look

Who was Harun Farocki?

Harun Farocki, who died in 2014 near Berlin, is considered one of the most important and worldwide most influential German filmmakers . He was an ethnographer of capitalist living environments that he scientifically examined and studied. The examination of the importance of images, their creation and in particular the power structures encoded in it was the focus of his approach and overall work.

With his artistic work, Farocki has already climbed top positions in the world's best list of art generated after attention/sales successes in his artistic career.

This ascent reaches its preliminary tip one and a half years after Farocki's death. A van Gogh effect (shortly after death a respected artist, but only around 100 years later really famous) cannot be responsible for it. Because the appreciation for Farocki's work has risen leap in recent years.

Films (Farocki films, serious films, films with content and thinking) do not bring Michelangelo money, it cannot be because of this-it could be because the content of Farocki's films is more topical than ever. Unfortunately; You can find out why in the article.

Harun Farocki: Focus of the art of art

Harun Farocki was clearly a sustainably committed filmmaker and films. From 1968 to 2014, he put over 120 films as a producer, author, director, cutter (often everything together). This is an average of 2.5 films per year, feature films and essay films, documentaries, artistic and experimental video installations.

In his video Still Life (Nature Morte) of 1997, he examined the work of advertising photographers: objects were meticulously placed and staged, dramaturgy developed and invented requirements. Farocki compared this to the Dutch-Flemish art of the 16th century, which also aimed to create bright pictures in order to create a certain mood, a wish or appreciation.

Just as the pictures are supposed to warn us of our transience and mortality, Farocki's camera revealed the dishonesty of the advertising industry.

In addition to his films, he was a successful speaker, media theorist, video and installation artist. Most recently, his works were to be seen in: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2017; 2009); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2017); Manifesta, Zurich (2016); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2016; 2014); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2014); Deichtorhallen Hamburg (2012); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011); and Kunsthaus Bregenz 2010.

Farocki's artistic expressiveness was not limited to the ongoing pictures:

Hanns Zischler, he took over the direction of two sensational Heiner-Müller productions at the Basel Theater with the pieces "The Battle" and "Tractor" , see "Harun Farocki and Heiner Müller and the topicality of the battle".

Farocki wrote for numerous magazines and magazines, from 1974 to 1984 he was the editor and author of the Filmkritik (Munich).

From the turn of the millennium, Farocki created a number of artistic works that are shown in exhibitions and museums, installations such as "Eye/Machine I, II, III" (2000-2003), "Objective" (2004), "Hearing Stations" (2006) and "Feeding or flying" (2008).

In 2006 Farocki curated the exhibition "Cinema like never before" (together with his wife Antje Ehmann, only in Vienna, 2007 in Berlin).

in Documenta 12 (Kassel 2007) with the media installation "Deep Play" from 2007.

How did Harun Farocki get art?

Harun Farocki studied his art and visited the first year of the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB) .

Opened on September 17, 1966 by the ruling mayor Willy Brandt, the academy began its training in the rooms of the Germany house of SFB on Adolf-Hitler-Platz (today: Theodor-Heuss-Platz 7, the theater visible at the back is the cabaret theater "Die Wühlmäuse" ) founded in 1960.

The aim was to give the less successful cinema of the German post -war period by promoting young talent, but towards the end of the 1960s it became political, turbulent and rather controversial on the DFFB. Typical Berliner and 1968: As early as the foundation was founded, the student body and management regularly fell in disputes with each other.

The will to political activity drove the DFFB students wide. The German Film and Television Academy was even occupied by some students and renamed the Dziga-Vertov Academy. It can be assumed that Harun Farocki was there that he is not said to have left an uprising with his fellow students of this very first class of the film college.

As so often, it ended in the 1968s: the heated action cooled down, 18 students had to leave the university forever, the rest rebelled a little more well within his institution. For example, Harun Farocki, then Dadaist and Maoist, didactic and situationist, deconstructivist and constructivist in full development.

Farocki shows us some evil grimaces of politics in his early films and stays with us over the years and - more and more - he acts more and more until his view of the "life - FRG" (1990) still splits the last rest of power.

At the time, the DFFB had already become completely sensible, Harun Farocki's fellow student Holger (RAF) had already died of the consequences of a hunger strike, fellow student Wolfgang Petersen acquired the first serious recognition around the mid -1970s, especially through documentary films

To date, the DFFB is directed by a dozen study places in the subject, six study places in the field of camera and eight study places in production, with multi -level selection processes. To date, the basic principle of the DFFB is: " You can't teach film, film can only be learned."

Farocki did exactly that: he has brought a lot of “film” in his life and it brought it to impressive championship:

The art of Harun Farocki: Examples

A small selection of films in which Harun Farocki wrote the script, for directing or production (and/or, often everything three) was responsible:

In 1969 "not extinguishing fire" out, a terrifying treatise on Napalm's mission in the Vietnam War.

In 1978 the first long film Farocki, produced over a period of six years, appeared: "Between two wars" is a cool, abstract, but also angrily intensive tract of the creation of the blast furnace industry between 1917 and 1933.

In razor -clear and precise craftsmanship, Farocki places “black and white thoughts” around the development of this heavy industry in the room, including contexts with National Socialism and the Second World War. Based on the example of iron smelting under the emissions of highly toxic gout gas, Farocki wants to show the self -destructive character of capitalist production.

, "a picture" dealt with the absurd effort that is operated for the creation of a fashion photo. You can see a section of it in the following video:

"picture war" , an "Enlightenment about the Enlightenment" appeared about the methods of imaging developed in the course of the 20th century, the military and police use their work. Including report on the development of the possibilities to read and interpret such photographs.

"Pictures of the world and inscription of the war" followed in 1989 Documentation about never evaluated aerial photographs of American bombers in the Second World War questioned strategic interests that ignored millions of suffering.

, “A day in the life of the end consumers” shows this life in hundreds of commercials, from brushing your teeth in the morning to the nighttime nightmare of the under insurance. The "Probably most expensive documentary of all time" does not require any comment and is an admirable proof of how sensitive Farocki received the signs of time:

Years before the larger trading companies had imagined their tax avoidance models and "I'm not stupid" slogans celebrated the consumer pregnancy, Farocki had already documented the final sliding into consumption madness for eternity.

The intellectual authors of the stupid slogan, "the undisputed number one in the electrical trade", put their success on their website in relation to the first moon landing-lovers of ironic film documentation that Farocki had no time for a statement.

In 1995 Farocki in “Workers leave the factory” a long look at the ants of the factory workers. They represented the motif in the first film of history. Only with music, the exploited flocked into freedom. Farocki shows her in the first film and 100 years later, with the same determination of the movements, with the same anonymous downfall in the "mass society".

In 1997 it was once again about pictorial representation in advertising: In the documentary "Still Life", Farocki compares today's advertising photography with the Dutch-Flemish "mainstream" painting of the 16th century, he finds many things in common.

In 2000, Farocki collected pictures of "kept" in "prison pictures" : inmates of prisons and inmates of disabilities, from 1920 to the recent past.

"The Creator of the Shopping Worlds" he painted a self-listening character image of the men behind the faceless shopping centers who are currently turning our world into uniform porridge.

From 2001 to 2003 the installations "Eye/Machine I - III" , in which Farocki deals with military image technology in civilian life. With the images of the Gulf War in the world, which leads worldwide in 1991, become one for the first time as a bomb and lens.

In a similar way, Farocki in 2003 documents the mechanization and dehumanization of the modern "clean" "recognizing and pursuing" , in which "the human victims would only be accepted" (quote Harun Farocki).

, “not without risk” reports long before the crisis on banks and money, risk capital and the negotiation of financing.

“Deep Play” takes a deep look at the World Cup final against France from 12 different perspectives on the World Cup final, section here:

"Business" showed documentary scenes from a Jewish passage camp, toneless historical 16 mm recordings that a Jewish inmate turned for the warehouse commander of the Dutch concentration camp transit bearing Westerbork. A reflection on the truth content of images, propaganda and intention, which was awarded in Locarno in 2007.

In 2009, “For comparison”, stone production over theerum of the times:

"Serious Games I-IV" follows a series of installations/video about "War games on the computer", commented by Farocki himself:

In 2012, Farocki in “A new product” very close to how a product in neoliberalism is created. With brainstorming, consultant team and flipcharts, with colorful words and colorful felt -pens, with only mildly uninterrupted market economy.

In 2013, Farocki portrays “Sauerbruch Hutton Architects” and presented the sustainability, ecological efficiency and the new, playful formal language of the buildings of the Berlin architecture firm. Trailer here:

Buildings to look at:

• Authority for urban development and living Hamburg
• Federal Environment Agency Dessau
• The Two New Ludgate, London
• Art Kubus Berlin
• GSW headquarters Berlin
• University of Potsdam

In September 2014, one month after Farocki's death, "Phoenix" , a film by Farocki's student Christian Petzold, is on, for whom both wrote the script together. The “post -war film” about a Jew that was looking for her husband and traitor after her captivity in Auschwitz received the award of international film criticism at the San Sebastián Film Festival; Trailer here:

Harun Farocki's work in public: exhibitions, art in public space and in public collections

After 30 years of film art, Harun Farocki developed around the turn of the millennium into a media artist whose installations populated museums and other exhibition venues.

That is why Harun Farocki's exhibition history only begins in 1997, but then with a blast: the 2nd Gwangju Biennale and the Documenta X in Kassel exhibited his works.

To see in just 20 years in around 440 public exhibitions in just 20 years. Among the most sought -after artists in the world are some who have not been able to achieve such exhibition presence throughout their long life. Most of these were in Germany (around a quarter), almost 50 in the USA and Austria, around 30 in Spain and France. Farocki's exhibition sites like to shine with special prominence.

Farocki was again on Documenta 12 in 2007, and above all on a few other Biennals:

• 2000 4. Werkleitz Biennale, Werkkleitz Gesellschaft EV, Halle, Saale
• 2003 10e Biennale de l'Inage en mouvement, Center pour l'Inage Contemporaine, Geneva
• 2005 11ème Biennale de l'Inage en mouvement, Center pour l'Inage Contemporaine, Geneva
• 2007 Prague Biennale 3, Karlin Hall, Prague
• 2008 Mediation Biennale 08, Center Kulty Zamek, Poznan
• 2008 7th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai
• 2008 16th Biennale of Sydney
• 2009 2nd Athens Biennial
• 2010 29 ° Bienal de São Paulo
• 2010 1st Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art Yekaterinburg
• 2010 8th Gwangju Biennale
• 2011 Sharjah Biennial 10
• 2012 Taipei Biennial 2012
• 2012 Biennale Regard Benin 2012, Cotonou
• 2013 La Otra Bienal de Arte 2013, Bogota
• 2013 6th Biennial of Moving Image Mechelen
• 2013 55. Biennale di Venezia
• 2014 Shanghai Biennale
• 2015 Vienna Biennale 2015

Harun Farocki was likely to be seen in every museum in the world that an abbreviation begins with "M":

• Macba (Museu d´Art Contemporani de Barcelona)
• Mac's (Musée of the Arts Contemporain Hornu)
• Mak (Austrian Museum of Applied Arts Vienna)
• Marco (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey)
• Marco (Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo)
• Mart (Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto)
• Mass Moca (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art North Adams)
• MDM (Museum of Modern Mönchsberg)
• MKG (Museum of Art and Trade Hamburg)
• MMOMA (Moscow Museum of Modern Art)
• MMSU (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka)
• MNAC (National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest)
• Moca (Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville)
• Moca (Pacific Design Center West Hollywood)
• Mocak (Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków)
• Moma (Museum of Modern Art New York City)
• Muhka (Museum Voor Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerp)
• Mumok (Museum Modern Art Foundation Ludwig Vienna)
• Muntref (Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero Buenos Aires)

And he will continue to see where and why that has to be, the article "Harun Farocki as a teacher of life" .