Artists’ Film International 2023

R.I.P. Germain, Everything’s For Sale & Everyone’s Welcome To Buy, 2023, Single-channel video with sound, 26:27 mins. Courtesy the artist. Everything’s For Sale & Everyone’s Welcome To Buy was commissioned by Forma for the Whitechapel Gallery’s Artists’ Film International (AFI), 2023.

Damir Avdagić, Prolazi izmedju 1980–2021 [Passages between 1980–2021], 2021, HD video with sound, 32:41 mins. Courtesy the artist. Selected by Tromsø Kunstforening.

Jesse Chun, O dust, 2022–23, 7:06 mins, single-channel video with sound in Korean, English and French. Courtesy of the artist. Selected by Ballroom Marfa, Texas.

Michelle Deignan, Looking for Gary, 2018, HD video with sound, 7:20 mins. Commissioned by Tintype Gallery for Essex Road V with support from Arts Council England. Selected by Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.

Dejan Kaludjerović, House-They-Europe, three songs from the opera performance I Don’t Know That Word …Yet, 2022, 3 HD single-channel video with sound, 20:22 mins. Collaboration with Marija Balubdžić, Bojan Đorđev and Tanja Šljivar. Commissioned by Steirischer Herbst 21. Selected by Cultural Centre of Belgrade.

Mochu, GROTESKKBASILISKK! MINERAL MIXTAPE, 2022, Full HD video with sound, 26:00 mins. Courtesy the artist. Selected by Project 88, Mumbai.

Nicola Pellegrini and Ottonella Mocellin, The wall between us, 2021, HD video with sound, 30:00 mins. Project supported by the Italian Council, 8th edition, 2020. The programme is aimed at supporting Italian contemporary art and is supported by the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity within the Italian Ministry of Culture. Selected by GAMeC, Bergamo.

Sashko Protyah (Freefilmers collective), My Favourite Job, 2022, single-channel video with sound, 31:00 mins. Courtesy the artists. Selected by Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

Liv Schulman, A somatic play (Aduaneras), 2019, 32:14 mins. Selected by Fundacion PRÓA, Buenos Aires.

Adnan Softić and Nina Softić, Ships with goods and materials from all over the world bump the Bibby Challenge with their waves, 2020, colour, sound, 12:25 mins. Courtesy the artists and Collection Video-Forum, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.). Selected by Video-Forum, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.).

AFI shows at the Gallery every Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the programme is looped until the Gallery closes:

R.I.P. Germain, Everything’s For Sale & Everyone’s Welcome To Buy, 2023: 11.00-11.27, 14.46-15.13

Damir Avdagić, Prolazi izmedju 1980–2021 [Passages between 1980–2021], 2021: 11.27-11.59, 15.13-15.45

Jesse Chun, O dust, 2022–23: 11.59-12.06, 15.45-15.52

Michelle Deignan, Looking for Gary, 2018: 12.06-12.13, 15.52-15.59

Dejan Kaludjerović, House-They-Europe, 2022: 12.13-12.33, 15.59-16.19

Mochu, GROTESKKBASILISKK! MINERAL MIXTAPE, 2022: 12.33 -12.59, 16.19-16.45

Nicola Pellegrini and Ottonella Mocellin, The wall between us, 2021: 12.59-13.30, 16..45-17.16

Sashko Protyah (Freefilmers collective), My Favourite Job, 2022: 13.30-14.01, 17.16-17.47

Adnan Softić and Nina Softić, Ships with goods and materials from all over the world bump the Bibby Challenge with their waves, 2020: 14.01-14.14, 17.47-18.00

Liv Schulman, A somatic play (Aduaneras), 2019: 1414-1446

Artists’ Film International (AFI) is a partnership of 18 international organisations that celebrates moving image: Bag Factory, Johannesburg; Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, Texas, USA; Belgrade Culture Centre, Belgrade; Center for Contemporary Art Afghanistan (CCAA); Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork; Fundacion Proa, Buenos Aires; GAMeC, Bergamo; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Istanbul Modern, Istanbul; MMAG Foundation, Amman; Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD), Manila; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; NBK, Berlin; Para Site, Hong Kong; Project 88, Mumbai; Tromsø Kunstforening, Tromsø; Whitechapel Gallery, London

Damir Avdagic‘s (b.1987, Banja Luka, BiH) practice explores themes of historical memory and identity through text, performance and video. The conflict in Ex-Yugoslavia (1991-1995) makes up a central part of Avdagic’s family history and he uses this event as an entry point to address themes such as shifting political systems, migration and the relationship between generations.

Avdagic’s work has been shown at 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica, Changwon Sculpture Bienniale, Changwon, South Korea, Kunsthall Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark & Kristiansand Kunsthall, Kristiansand, Norway amongst many others.

Jesse Chun (b.1984, Seoul, South Korea) is an artist based in New York and Seoul. Chun’s short films, moving image poems, drawings, and installations address language, translation, and historiography. Chun has exhibited internationally at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (Canada); Nam June Paik Art Center (South Korea); SculptureCenter, New York; the Drawing Center, New York; Queens Museum, NY; Ballroom Marfa, TX, among others. Chun is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (US; 2020). Select public collections include the Museum of Modern Art Library (NY); the Smithsonian Institution (DC); the Metropolitan Museum of Art Library (NY); and KADIST (FR/US).

Michelle Deignan (b.1970, Dublin) is an artist and filmmaker based in London. She makes moving image, photographic and print works, for exhibition and screening contexts. These works critically examine the production and dissemination of culture now and historically.

Recent exhibitions include: True North, Galería Fermay, Palma de Mallorca, ES (2023); BIENALSUR, Montevideo, UY and Córdoba, AR (2022); Halvad Ideed (Bad Ideas) Tallinna Kunstihoone, Tallinn, EE (2022);  Rencontres Internationale Paris/Berlin, Louvre Museum FR (2021). Michelle is a contributor to The Crown Letter, a self-organised international women’s art project, publishing weekly responses by artists to the here, then and now. www.crownproject.art

R.I.P. Germain’s practice traffics in double meanings, deep resonances and a tension between accessibility and occlusion. Trickster and guide, he tries to dance a fine line: making work that speaks to deep truths without cheapening them with explanations or flattening them out for easy consumption. Sedimented with layers dense with cultural meaning and reference, the extensive research undergirding R.I.P. Germain’s work draws from multiple genres of Black experience, history and culture – personal and collective, seeking to make art that is rigorous about his commitments and possibilities as a Black artist.

R.I.P. Germain has exhibited internationally and recent exhibitions include; Jesus Died For Us, We Will Die For Dudus!, a solo show at ICA, London; Cubitt 30, a group show presented by Cubitt at Victoria Miro in London, UK; The Exhibition Formerly Known As “Trace Image” at Deborah Schamoni, Munich, Germany; Shimmer, a solo show at Two Queens in Leicester, UK; Four Bedrooms With An En Suite, A Garage & Garden In A Nice Neighbourhood, a solo show at V.O Curations in London, UK; Supastore Southside, Slingbacks & Sunshine, a group show hosted by Sarah Staton at South London Gallery; Ways of Living #2, a group show presented by Arcadia Missa at NICO in Bari, Italy; Dead Yard, a solo show at Cubitt in London, UK; Double 6 with Ashley Holmes in the former courtroom at Leeds Town Hall in Leeds, UK; and Gidi Up, a solo show at Peak in London, UK. R.I.P. Germain was also the recipient of the ICA Image Behaviour 2021 prize, which culminated in his first short film premiering at the ICA in 2022.

Dejan Kaludjerović (b. Belgrade, Yugoslavia) studied at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna in the class of Erwin Wurm and gained an MA in visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 2004. For his achievements in visual arts, Kaludjerović was granted in 2010 an honourable Austrian citizenship. In 2017 Kaludjerović co-founded a Vienna based arts and cultural organization Verein K. Kaludjerović’s work is part of many private and public collections, among others: MUSA, WIEN MUSUEM, KONTAKT collection, STRABAG collection and collection of the Artothekdes Bundes in Vienna and Salzburg Museum der Moderne; Museum of Contemporary ArtBelgrade, October Salon Collection andCity Museum in Belgrade; APT Berlin; Yarat-Centreof Contemporary Art, Baku; National Museum of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alanica, Vladikavkaz, etc.

Mochu (b.1983,  India) works with video and text arranged as installations, lectures and publications. Techno-scientific fictions feature prominently in his practice, often overlapping with instances or figures drawn from art history and philosophy. Recent projects have explored cyberpunk nostalgia, corporate horror, mad geologies, psychedelic subcultures and Indian modernist painting. He is the author of the books Bezoar Delinqxenz (Edith-Russ-Haus / Sternberg Press, 2023), and Nervous Fossils: Syndromes of the Synthetic Nether (Reliable Copy / KNMA, 2022). His works have been exhibited at Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst, Home Works Forum, 9th Asia Pacific Triennial, Sharjah Biennial 13, 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale and transmediale:BWPWAP.

Ottonella Mocellin (b.1966, Milan) and Nicola Pellegrini (b.1962, Milan) live in Berlin. In 2002 they where in residence at PS1, New York. Their work has been shown in galleries and museums amongst which the Torino, Brescia, Valencia, Tel Aviv and Tirana Biennials; Manifesta  12 Palermo; Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava; MUAR, Moscow; PS1, New York; Atelier D’Artistes, Marseille; SMART, Amsterdam, Kunst Haus, Dresden; Participant Ink New York;  White Columns New York; American University Museum Washington DC; FFFrankfurt; Fondazione la Marrana Monte Marcello;  MA*GA Gallarate,  Villa Romana, Firenze; CCC Strozzina; Firenze; GAM, Bologna; GAM, Torino; MART, Trento e Rovereto; PAC, Milano; PAN, Napoli; Galleria Civica, Trento; MAMBo, Bologna; Fondazione Merz, Torino; Triennale, Milano; Fondazione del Monte Bologna.

In 2020 they won the  8th edition of Italian Council.

They are represented by Galleria Lia Rumma, Milano.

Sashko Protyah (b. Mariupol, Ukraine) is a film director and activist. He’s a co-founder of Freefilmers, a collective of artists and filmmakers. In his films, he works with topics of memory, otherness, and alienation. Now Sashko is based in Zaporizhzhia and volunteers for IDPs and the Ukrainian army.

Liv Schulman (b.1985). She grew up in Buenos Aires and lives in Paris. After studying at the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Cergy, she trained at Goldsmiths University of London and at the Beaux-Arts de Lyon postgraduate program. Her work was notably presented at the CRAC Alsace, Bemis Art Center, FondationRicard, the Rennes Biennial or at the Galerie, Centre d’art contemporain, in Noisy-le-Sec, at the SixtyEight Art Institute in Copenhagen. In 2019, she received the foundation Ricard Prize awarded to her on the occasion of the exhibition “LeVingtième Prix de la Fondation d’entreprise Ricard”, conceived by Neil Beloufa, and presented a solo exhibition at the Villa Vassilieff, she was a resident at the VillaMédicis in Rome

The artist duo Adnan Softić and Nina Softić are based in Berlin and Sarajevo. Their collaborative practice explores the relationship between aesthetics, politics, and ecology, focusing on phenomena such as problems of communicability, exile, extraterritoriality, invisibility, culture, and violence. Their artistic work process is research-based, interdisciplinary, and a hybrid of poetic and philosophicalscientific explorations. Recent exhibitions and screenings have taken place at venues including n.b.k. Berlin; Johann Jacobs Museum, Zurich; National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegowina, Sarajevo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Novi Sad ; MAXXI Museo, Rome; Berlinische Galerie; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg.