Alexander Kluge. Minutenfilme

September 17, 2021–July 31, 2022

Alexander Kluge. Minutenfilme

ARGOS is excited to announce the opening of a new, year-long exhibition project by the eminent German director Alexander Kluge.

Minutenfilme is a rotating exhibition presenting five sequential constellations of eight films each. Compiled by Alexander Kluge especially for this occasion, these presentations feature selections of recent Minutenfilme—short, hybrid films that typically run from one to eight minutes. Ranging from the theoretical to the operatic, from the cosmic to the mathematical, in these films Kluge offers an often ironic yet candid social commentary on historical and contemporary events.

For his Minutenfilme Alexander Kluge has developed a single-minded way of filmmaking in which complex ideas are condensed into a few minutes. To achieve this, the director uses highly idiosyncratic ways of editing in which a plethora of images and sounds are brought together from a wide variety of sources and collaborators. In so doing, Kluge imagines an active role for the viewer: “The viewers are the medium, what they cannot imagine neither can exist in the medium.”

About Alexander Kluge:
Alexander Kluge (b. 1932) is a German writer of non-fiction and fiction, a leading filmmaker, television pioneer, and public intellectual. After assisting Fritz Lang on Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1959), he subsequently became one of the most prominent representatives of the New German Cinema. His Minutenfilme correspond with films of nine to ten hours length, such as News from Ideological Antiquity – Marx/Eisenstein/The Capital (2008) and Dancing With Pictures (2017).

Minutenfilme takes place in the framework of Festival der Kooperationen mit Alexander Kluge at Literaturhaus Berlin and is organised in cooperation with Goethe-Institut Brüssel. In conjunction with this international festival of activities, Bozar Films in Brussels will screen Alexander Kluge and Khavn’s rock opera Orphea (2020) on 30 September 2021.