Despair, 2009. 7’22” / Deleuze un Album, 2009. 23” / Said the poet to the analyst, 2009. 1’19” / The Garden of Proserpine, 2008. 2’08” / Six Essential Books, 2008. 1’34” / Vacillation, 2008. 35” / We’ll Let You Know, 2008. 58” / O come all ye faithful, 2007. 47” / Come to the Edge, 2003. 1’36”
Whitechapel Gallery, Reino Unido. www.whitechapel.org
The history of cinema is present in the work of Stephen Sutcliffe through minimal fragments of time but in a new universe. A mix of sounds and images in a new visual chaos:
Using his extensive archive of VHS and audio recordings, Sutcliffe meshes soundtracks with moving images to create a sophisticated visual language. These often very short ‘video collages’ create complex, disjointed associations from fragments of written and spoken word, found broadcast images, animation and music. Moments of British cultural history from pastoral poetry and Monty Python to the pre-digital VHS aesthetic of the media, collide with a contemporary interest in appropriation and ideas of original material.
Alongside eight short video works, the programme includes the recent video Despair, 2009. Based on Vladimir Nabokov’s 1934 novel of the same name involving murder, double and mixed identities, Sutcliffe’s work includes extracts from German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1978 adaptation of Despair, extracts from American film director Kenneth Anger’s Eaux d’Artifice, 1953, an interview with Fassbinder and 17th century baroque music.
Stephen Sutcliffe (Harrogate, 1968). He studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and Glasgow School of Art (from where he participated on an exchange programme at Cal Arts, Valencia California). Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at Cubitt, London, 2009; Nought to Sixty, ICA, 2008 and Art Now/Lightbox, Tate Britain, 2005. Group shows include the Zenomap Performance Space at the Venice Biennale, 2003 and the British Council touring show, Electric Earth, 2003. He was shortlisted for the Jarman Award in 2009 and he has been commissioned by Frieze Projects to present a new film work during Frieze Art Fair, October 2010.