Chantal Akerman

Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston and the List Center for the Arts at MIT will present Chantal Akerman, the internationally renowned filmmaker and video artist in her first major museum exhibition in the United States. The exhibition will feature four multi-media video installations: her "documentary series" comprised of D'Est (From the East), Sud, From the Other Side, La Bas, and a new work created especially for the exhibition. D’Est (1993) retraces a journey from the end of summer to deepest winter, from East Germany, across Poland and the Baltics, to Moscow in a compendium of striking images of Eastern Europe and its citizens in transition, following the collapse of the so-called Cold War. From the Other Side (1999) is an unsentimental look at the plight of illegal Mexican immigrants as they attempt the dangerous crossing from Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico to Douglas, Arizona. Sud (1999) was inspired by Akerman’s love for the work of the renowned southern writers William Faulkner and James Baldwin, but quickly shifted from an elegant meditation on the south to a passionate documentary capturing the tumultuous aftermath of the murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas. Làs-Bas is a rare self-reflective piece on Akerman’s Jewish heritage filmed nearly exclusively in her apartment in Tel Aviv.

Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space is organized by Terrie Sultan, Director, Blaffer Gallery, Claudia Schmuckli, Curator, Blaffer Gallery, with Bill Arning, Curator, MIT's List Visual Arts Center, and will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue.

Chantal Akerman
Moving Through Time and Space