Fischinger Treffen

Director: Florian Zeyfang    → show biography   ← hide biography

Biography: Florian Zeyfang born 1965 in Stuttgart, Germany. 1987 to 1993 at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. 1997/8 at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, currently Professor for Video/Installation at the Art Academy in Umeå, Sweden. In his texts, videos and installation work, the Berlin based artist, videomaker and writer Florian Zeyfang critically looks at the connotations of a globalized world of media signs and at the consequences for the society and the individual, taking into account historic aspects of both art and political movements. His projects are conceived within different forms of the moving image: film, video, slide projection, animation. Spacious installations as well as slide series ("slow films") form an important part of his discussion of “time-based media.” Florian Zeyfang regularly takes part in exhibitions nationally and abroad, recently in Kunstverein Köln, at A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and Artists Space, New York; at the 2nd Tirana Biennale, at ICA Moscow, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and Kunstverein Hannover, at the 6th Werkleitz Biennale in Halle and at the KW Berlin. Furthermore, the artist curates projects for institutions like CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warschau, sala rekalde in Bilbao, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, the 8th Havanna Biennale, the foto festival in Houston, in the Museum for Applied Arts Wien, in the MAK Schindlerhaus in Los Angeles and the Swiss Institute in New York. Currently, Florian Zeyfang works on exhibition projects ranging between Art and experimental film (“Poor Man´s Expression”, Berlin 2006; “1,2,3 Avant-Gardes”, Warschau/Stuttgart/Bilbao 2006-2008). Lisa Schmidt-Colinet and Alexander Schmoeger are architects and live in Vienna. Since 2001 Schmidt-Colinet/Schmoeger and Florian Zeyfang have collaborated on exhibitions and projects. Together with Eugenio Valdés Figueroa they published “Pabellón Cuba,” an extensive reader on art, architecture, and film in Cuba.

Country: Germany

Year: 2002

Synopsis: "FISCHINGER TREFFEN, [presenting in the title (in an anti-obscurant way) its historical reference], relates to the pioneer of abstract animation film, Oskar Fischinger, who was active after World War One.
Apart from his experimental abstract films, he also worked as a cameraman, developed special effects, and produced commercials and trailers; moreover, he left behind an extensive body of drawing works. Having fled from the Nazis to the United States in 1936, he worked in Hollywood studios, among others with Walt Disney on his animated epic Fantasia.
At the end of the video entitled RE-FISHING FISCHINGER Zeyfang demonstrates how he indeed reconstructs the pictures of the first episode of the film, which was drawn by Fischinger, by hastily placing sheet after sheet of white paper for tracing. But this is not at all done in a virtuoso manner; one sees the effort it takes to follow the jerky movements in almost dance-like body motions while he draws. Also discernible, however, is the imperfection of this attempt. It is an encounter, nothing more. What becomes all the more clear in the process is how important Fischinger’s historical model of an art producer and media combiner is for Zeyfang: he refers to a model which is again superseded through the distancing gesture of tracing. In addition, baroque-like music from Fantasia is used, which is also reminiscent of Truffaut’s "meta-film" La Nuit Américaine where it can be heard in scenes without dialogue as a kind of productivist ideal soundtrack."
(From: Clemens Krümmel, "Film and Drawing on a Tape of Florian Zeyfang", in: Fokussy. Florian Zeyfang, Berlin 2004)

Language: English

Tags: Video Installation, Loop