The presence of moving images within spaces of contemporary art is an established and much-discussed condition of international art. But how do these spaces present and reflect the diverse histories, conditions, and materials of cinema? Which cinema’s do they select to represent and how can spaces of contemporary art provide new ways to think about and explore the diverse history of artists’ work with film and video? How do these areas of practice change how art history is constructed?

George Clark will reflect on these questions drawing on his experience as a curator and artist, discussing his work with film and video at Tate Modern and through his numerous curatorial projects that have sought to manifest a critical approach to contemporary art and explore the area of artists moving image. He will explore this critical practice of film and video curation in relation to how art history of narrated in international contexts and also how artists moving image presents an alternative way of working critical of both and contemporary art.

This illustrated talk will explore contemporary approaches to moving image curation discussing arguments for how film and video has been approached within the spaces of contemporary art, galleries, film festivals and modern art museum. Reflecting on the history of practice, exhibition and distribution the talk will seek to open up the proliferation of terms used to describe this area of practice from artists moving image to video art, experimental cinema and the essay film.

About the Speaker
George Clark is an artist and curator. Recent work includes the feature film A Distant Echo (2016), which explores myth, history, and ecology in the desert, and the film Sea of Clouds / 雲海 (2016), which is structured around an interview with artist Chen Chieh-jen. His solo exhibition A Planter’s Art featured a new series of moving image works installed alongside a specially cultivated garden in Taiwan, and his ongoing project Eyemo Rolls draws on a growing body of 35mm films shown in dialog with other works as means to think about place and entanglement. He has curated projects for museums, galleries, cinemas, and festivals with a focus on broadening the histories of film and video practice globally. Through his work at Tate Modern (2013-2015) and in independent projects, he has curated retrospectives of Ute Aurand, Julian Dashper, Lav Diaz, Camille Henrot, Vlado Kristl, Luis Ospina, and Chick Strand, as well as thematic exhibitions on Japanese expanded cinema (with Julian Ross and Go Hirasawa), the L.A. Rebellion, and Infermental, the first magazine on videocassette (with Dan Kidner and James Richards). He has written numerous catalogue essays and his articles have been published by Afterall, Mousse Magazine, Sight & Sound and Tate among others.