Chantal Akerman

Tomb?e de nuit sur Shanghai [Nightfall on Shanghai], 2007? 2009, Single channel video installation, color, sound, 14 min., looped with 2 Chinese light boxes, Courtesy of the Chantal Akerman Estate and Marian Goodman Gallery

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The film Tomb?e de nuit sur Shanghai [Nightfall on Shanghai] was Akerman’s contribution to the omnibus film State of the World (2007, contributed by 6 directors from different nations) that illuminated the context of today’s world. The short is an extended view of Shanghai full of excessive imagery and culture. Scenes taken at dusk of shimmering water and towering skyscrapers with huge LED signs embedded in their fa?ades seem to float like videos within the video. The skyscrapers of Shanghai, captured by the artist’s indifferent dry eyes, blend with the cityscape outside the museum, enabling us to reflect and understand global cities, especially Asian metropolises.

Chantal Akerman

1950?2015. Lived and worked in Paris.
Chantal Akerman’s work can be considered as a meditation on the problematic nature of the representational abilities of cinema. Many of her works contain images that are presented in unbroken takes from a fixed perspective, and her films are often marked by the lack of conventional cinematic devices such as dialogue or plot. Often set in real time, they display a lack of hierarchy in the way in which the images are presented; the gradual accumulation of small details and everyday observations create a language of great emotional power.