by Hito Steyerl, Germany 2012, 19''
Guards
2012, 19’
directed by Hito Steyerl
assistant director Ben Tharp Brown
editing Cristóvão A. dos Reis, Maria Frycz (assistente)
production Tracy Parker
photography Kevan Jenson
post-production Christoph Manz, (assistente Berlino) Alwin Franke
with the support of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Presented at Lo schermo dell'arte Film Festival 2014
The video’s protagonists are two security guards at the Art Institute of Chicago, both with military pasts. They speak of their past experiences while, in the museum’s chambers, a series of projections accompanies them through the simulation of a military action.
Hito Steyerl
(Munich, 1966. Lives and works in Berlin) is a filmmaker, artist and writer. She has published many books, including The Green Room. Reconsidering the Documentary and Contemporary Art (Sternberg Press 2008). She teaches Experimental Film and Video at UdK Berlin and has held courses at the Dutch Art Institute, the Malmö Art Academy, Akademie der bildenden künste in Vienna, the Royal Art Academy of Copenhagen, and Goldsmiths College of London, among others.
She was Wim Wenders’ assistant on his films Till the End of the World and So Far, So Near.
Among her more recent one-woman shows: ICA, London; Van Abbenmuseum, Eindhoven; and the Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart (2014); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2013); e-flux New York; Wilfried Lentz in Rotterdam (2012). She has shown at Biennales in Venice, Istanbul (2013), Gwangju (2010), Shanghai (2008), Berlin (2004), and at documenta 12 KASSEL (2007), and Manifesta 5 (2005). Her films were presented at Festivals in Oberhausen and Rotterdam (2013), Copenhagen (2010), Loop (2010), as well as in major museums and art centers world-wide, including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Stedelijk, Amsterdam; MCA, Chicago; HKW, Berlin; the Museum of Photograhy, Tokyo; MACBA, Barcelona; CCA, Glasgow, and the Tate Gallery, London.