2 July 2008

Lene Berg
Leandro Erlich
20 Aug – 28 Sept. Preview Opening 20 August, 6.30 – 8.30pm.
 
The Whitechapel Gallery presents the UK premiere of film and video work by 
Lene Berg and Leandro Erlich
 
From May – November 2008, the Whitechapel Gallery’s Art in the Auditorium programme in partnership with museums in China, Europe, Latin America and North America brings together emerging international film and video artists.
 
Programmed by Henie Onstad Kunstcentre, Oslo, the films of Lene Berg often form part of wider projects which include text, collage, photography and installation.  She is interested in exploring the tension between fiction and reality and public and private appearance, the personal histories constructed by individuals set against an official public history.  The Whitechapel is showing The Man in the Background, 2006, which consists of a repeated sequence of found home-movie images shot on Super-8 film. The artist has added seven voice-overs, each describing a different side of the story of Michael and Diana Josselson, a seemingly ordinary convivial American couple travelling through the familiar tourist sites of Europe in 1958. Exposed later as a CIA operative, the film builds up a narrative picture of the complex double-life of Michael Josselson, as shaped by prevailing Cold War cultural politics.
 
Leandro Erlich also examines the illusory nature of appearance but concentrates on the field of perception rather than historical narrative. Described as a master of deception, his work plays with the boundaries between two and three dimensions, between representation and real space. His works often contains an element of performance; in the Tai-Chi display of El Ballet Studio, 2003 performers reflect each other’s movements in a mirrored room, creating an artificial space. The second film Le Cabinet du Psychanalyste, 2005 relies on audience interaction as spectators enter a room with minimal furniture to find themselves reflected through glass onto and into the furnishings of a psychoanalyst’s therapy room.  Selected by Fundacion PROA, Buenos Aires these two works playfully reflect the perceptual ambiguity that is inherent to the moving image, employing processes of mirroring, duplication and superimposition.

Notes for Editors
·         Lene Berg was born in Norway in 1965. She studied film at  Dramatiska Institutet in Stockholm and is currently the Norwegian ISCP fellow in New York. Berg lives and works in Oslo and Stockholm. Recent group exhibitions include Sydney Biennale 2008, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev,Transmediale 08: Conspire, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin 2008; Beyond Kiosk, ICA, Philadelphia, 2008; Pensée Sauvages. Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2007. A recent solo project Stalin by Picasso or Portrait of Woman with Moustache is showing at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo.
·         Leandro Erlich was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1973. Erlich lives and works in Buenos Aires and Paris. Recent solo exhibitions includeProducciones, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, November 2008; Leandro Erlich, Museo de Arte Contemporanea Roma (MACRO). 2006. Recent group exhibitions include Reconstruction 3, Sudeley Castle, UK, 2007; Notre Histoire, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2006; 51st Venice Biennale, Italian Pavilion, 2005;Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse, France 2003
·         Participating venues in the touring programme are; Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, Texas; Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo; Henie Onstad Kunstsentre, Oslo; Fundacion PROA, Buenos Aires; The Institute for the Readjustment of Clocks, Istanbul; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Kunsthaus, Zurich.
The Whitechapel has entered the most exciting phase of its 100 year history: an ambitious expansion into the former library building adjacent to the Gallery.
During the 18-month construction phase the Whitechapel has become the Whitechapel Laboratory with exhibitions, live music, poetry, talks and film via a new entrance at Angel Alley.  The expanded Whitechapel is due to re-open in spring 2009.
 
Events
·         Preview opening, Wednesday 20 August, 6.30 – 8.30pm.
 
Visitor Information
Via a new visitor entrance at Angel Alley during the 18-month construction phase of the Gallery’s expansion open Weds – Sun 11am – 6pm.  Thursdays until 9pm with talks, events, poetry and music.  Admission free.
 
Whitechapel, Whitechapel High Street London E1. Nearest tube Aldgate East.
T +44 (0) 20 7522 7888 www.whitechapel.org
Press Information
Elizabeth Flanagan on 020 7522 7871 or email
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