Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam is very proud to host the Austrian artist Josef Dabernig (1956, lives and works in Vienna) showing his film
River Plate
The opening will be during the last weekend of the 43rd edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam on Saturday, February 1st from 5-7 pm.
The show runs till March 1st. During Art Rotterdam (5-9 February) the gallery is open by appointment. For further information and visuals, please contact the gallery: office@wilfriedlentz.com or +31 (0)10 4126459.
Click here to download press release as pdf
Josef Dabernig’s new film River Plate, 2013 (HDV, b/w, 16 min) displays a micro society in a fragmented body-narration. Knees, shoulders, feet and bellies are signifiers of articulated human presence, revealing nothing else against a claustrophobic background of cement, stone and water.
Flog style editing is accompanied by sound cascades of elementary noise from the river and the highway. Bodies are the antagonists of all compromising contextual frameworks. An existential plot is confronted by the bareness of body language, enclosed within itself and against everything else.
Dabernig initially started a career as a sculptor and has made films since 1996, often situated in a harsh, disciplined and existential environment. As in most of his works, we are confronted with a world running on idle, in waiting or inhibited.
His films have been shown at international venues like Manifesta, the Venice Biennial and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Filmfestival participations include Locarno, Oberhausen, Rotterdam and Toronto. Solo exhibitions among others at MAK Vienna, MNAC Bucharest, BAK Utrecht and CAC in Vilnius. Last year Dabernig had a solo at the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art, Kraków (PL). In the summer of this year the mumok in Vienna will present a comprehensive retrospective of the artist with a large body of works, such as sculptures, drawings, photographs and films, accompanied with a monograph.
River Plate, 2013
35mm transferred onto HD Video, b/w, 16 min
Director, Script, Editing and Production: Josef Dabernig. Camera: Christian Giesser. Sound design: Michael Palm. Cast: María Berríos, Josef Dabernig, Wolfgang Dabernig, Isabella Hollauf, Ingeburg Wurzer, Otto Zitko. Support: if innovative film Austria, ORF – Film and Television Agreement