Chantal Akerman
1950 - 2015
Died in Paris (FR), born in Brussels (BE).
'I won't say I'm a feminist film-maker ... I'm not making women's films, I'm making Chantal Akerman's films'. (London, 1979)
The longtime resident in Paris, Belgian director Chantal Akerman is one of the most influential filmmakers of her generation, and except for her monumental reputation in the field of feminist film (criticism) has also played a crucial role in the gradual rapprochement between "conventional" cinema and the moving image art installation lean. Since the early nineties Akerman also alternated between two adjacent active areas: mainstream or art house film releases such as A Couch in New York (1996) and La Captive (2000) solves them with quasi-experimental documentaries and Là-bas (2006) or video equipment as D'Est (1993). This work (with the significant, programmatic subtitle Au bord de la fiction), which includes at Documenta X (1997) was seen - Akerman then took part in Documenta 11 - continues to date and Akerman's most ambitious outing in the visual arts are, ironically, this was also the last of her artwork that was shown in Belgium (in the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels in 1995, triggered in 2007 Akerman is a contribution to a play by Jan Fabre). She created undisputed classics like Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, and her work was shown in prestigious galleries and museums in Berlin (where she was involved in the planning of an exhibition in the Jüdische Museum), Houston, New York and Paris.
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