Film as Place

This thematic presentation centers on the notion of place from a variety of temporal and geographical angles. The five featured artists address specific locations as a meeting of history, geography, and cultural conditions. The exhibition highlights Julia Scher’s Predictive Engineering³, a surveillance-based installation first conceived for SFMOMA’s original Van Ness building in 1993, now restaged for a third iteration in response to both the Snøhetta–designed expansion and current technology landscape, as well as Beryl Korot’s seminal Dachau 1974 (1974), an early multi-monitor video installation. An adjoining gallery will rotate projections by three leading international artists: Shadow Sites II (2011) by Jananne Al-Ani (May 14 through July 10), The Pixelated Revolution (2012) by Rabih Mroué (July 16 through September 5), and Phantoms of Nabua (2009) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (September 10 through October 30). Together, the works in Film as Place not only offer an investigation of the local presence of history, but also reveal how time-based situations and narratives are perceived through a cinematic and political lens.

Header image: Julia Scher, Predictive Engineering³ (installation view), 1993–present; collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase, 1998; ©​ Julia Scher