Wendelien van Oldenborgh, From Left To Night, 2015

Wendelien van Oldenborgh

Wendelien van Oldenborgh: From Left to Night

Over the course of a two-day film shoot, From Left to Night explores the collision of a number of seemingly unconnected players, places, events, and histories—all drawn from a complex London neighbourhood, an area of deprivation bordered by the wealthiest sites of the city. The film revolves around six people, three locations, and the different subjects and forms of knowledge they bring with them. These range from urban tensions, such as unresolved histories of the 2011 London riots, to new feminist and racial theories, music videos, 1960s idealist architecture, and the personal ways in which each of the protagonists relates to these things.

The filming location moves between the outside of Paddington Green Police Station, where UK terror suspects are detained and questioned, to the Joe Strummer Subway beneath it (named after the lead singer of the punk band the Clash, which allegedly formed locally), and a recording studio whose fame dates back to the early 1980s when Duran Duran recorded the hit song Girls on Film there. Through carefully orchestrated scenarios, van Oldenborgh creates situations where the meeting of these elements triggers new articulations and sparks of logic. The ‘script’ was generated with the full involvement of the players, during the process of filming.

As with the artist’s previous works, the film explores social dynamics and behaviours, the governing systems and architectures that provoke and reinforce them, as well as the voice and language of the individual amidst it all. In so doing van Oldenborgh reveals a reality often hidden from view in the public realm, in an attempt to understand familiar stories in a new way.

Included in the exhibition will be a newly developed series of large lenticular prints, which function together with the large-scale projection of the video and separately projected subtitles. The works are presented within an architectural configuration that anticipates the infrastructure of the gallery space.

From Left to Night was produced by The Showroom in London where it premiered in Van Oldenborgh’s solo show in 2015. At the beginning of this month the film was screened at a festive event at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, where her new monograph Amateur was launched. Van Oldenborgh, who was awarded the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art in 2014, has participated in numerous biennials and film festivals such as the The School of Kyiv – Kyiv Biennial 2015, Venice Biennial, the Bienal de São Paulo, the Istanbul Biennial, the Oberhausen Short Film Festival 2010, Images Festival Toronto and the Berlinale Forum. She has participated in numerous exhibitions, most recently at the Collective Gallery in Edinburgh, Kunsthalle Vienna, Tate Liverpool, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Van Abbemusem, Eindhoven.

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Wendelien van Oldenborgh, From Left To Night, 2015
2K video, English spoken, English subtitles on separate screen, 32 min.
Installation view Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam, 2016
(photo: Sander van Wettum)
Wendelien van Oldenborgh, From Left To Night, 2015
2K video, English spoken, English subtitles on separate screen, 32 min.
Installation view Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam, 2016
(photo: Sander van Wettum)
Wendelien van Oldenborgh, From Left To Night, 2015
2K video, English spoken, English subtitles on separate screen, 32 min.
Installation view Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam, 2016
(photo: Sander van Wettum)
Wendelien van Oldenborgh, From Left To Night, 2015
Wendelien van Oldenborgh, From Left To Night, 2015
Film still
2K video, English spoken, English subtitles on separate screen, 32 min.

Wendelien van Oldenborgh, From Left To Night, 2015
Wendelien van Oldenborgh, From Left To Night, 2015
Film still
2K video, English spoken, English subtitles on separate screen, 32 min.