Revisited Frames

A ninety minute film has 129 600 frames and each of them is seen for only a fragment of a second. It is therefore obvious that our experience of film must be different from how we perceive paintings where we can decide for ourselves how long we take to scrutinize the image.

At the exhibition Revisited Frames at Reykjavik Art Museum – Hafnarhús Friðrik Þór Friðriksson has selected frames from his and Lars von Trier’s films which have then been painted in oil on outsized canvases. The exhibition is intended to shock us out of our habitual frame of mind and get us to look at filmic images in another way, to stop and wonder, examine and question them. What is a film? What is a painting? What is reality? These art forms echo each other and are alike in many ways. In both cases their meaning and impact is to a large degree dependent on visual composition, colours and forms, and on the inner tension of these elements.

The film directors Friðirk Þór Friðriksson and Lars von Trier both emphasize the visual or painterly aspect of their films thought they are also engaging storytellers. Lars von Trier has coproduced most of Friðrik Þór’s films and Friðrik Þór has been involved in the production of von Tirer’s films Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark – in all, they have produced about twenty films together. Their best-known cooperative effort is probably when Friðrik Þór played one of the leading roles in von Trier’s film The Boss of it All in 2006. With this exhibition they take their cooperation onto a new venue to give their audience a new way into their thinking and to underline the artistic ambition of their films. The exhibition also includes a video by Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon, using images of the actors that have played in Friðrik Þór‘s and von Trier‘s films. Curated by Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon. The exhibition is on show until 18 October.

Text by Jón Proppé

Sunday 6 September 3 p.m.
Hafnarhús – Revisited Frames
Artists' talk by Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon and Friðrik Þór Friðriksson.

Friday 25 September 12:30 p.m.
Hafnarhús – Revisited Frames
Artists' talk in English by Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon and Friðrik Þór Friðriksson.