Pip Greenaway as Susa Bubble
Image by Igor Mandic
Message in a Bottle: Memory 4
Multimedia installation by Saskia Boddeke
LENNUSADAM - Seaplane Harbour
08.03.2019 – 19.01.2020
Tallinn- Estonia
An Immersive multimedia art-installation: Sex & The Sea by Saskia Boddeke about the sexual desire of the seaman. After its showings in The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland this exhibition in Estonia is an extended version of the installation specially design for Seaplane Harbour - Tallinn. A new Chapter has been added: The Message in a Bottle installation.
Voor de camera van zijn echtgenote Saskia Boddeke onthult filmmaker en manusje-van-alles Peter Greenaway zijn verfijnde, ludieke en prettig gestoorde universum. Hij speelt met de camera, drijft de spot met zijn personage en vertelt over zijn obsessies. Maar als het van hun dochter Zoé afhangt, is de speeltijd voorbij. Door de vragen en de pijn van de 16-jarige worden de kaarten opnieuw geschud. The Greenaway Alphabet is een ludiek, maar raadselachtig portret, nu eens druk en levendig en vaak vrolijk, dan weer somber hier en daar ...
The fascinations of filmmaker Peter Greenaway, whose motto is "art is life and life is art,"are captured like butterflies and arranged in an alphabet, a form that suits him perfectly as an encyclopedist. In intimate conversations with his perceptive 16-year-old daughter Pip, we discover the who's, whats and whys about Greenaway.
Peter Greenaway constructs an alphabet for and with his daughter Zoë as a blueprint of his life. The fascinations of filmmaker Peter Greenaway, whose motto is “art is life and life is art”, are captured like butterflies and arranged in an alphabet, a form suiting him perfectly as an encyclopedist. In intimate conversations with his perceptive 16-year-old daughter Zoë, we discover the “whos, whats, and whys” about Greenaway. They begin with A, which stands for Amsterdam, but could also stand for autism, Zoë suggests. Greenaway’s boundless creativity and unconstrained flow of words brings this to mind indeed, and he admits to wearing the label with pride. The playful conversations don’t shy away from painful topics: we hear that Greenaway hasn’t seen two other children of his for years. Later, heartbroken and in tears, Zoë asks him if for once he can stop talking like a commentator. Zoë’s spontaneous questions penetrate Greenaway to the core, enabling his wife, multimedia artist Saskia Boddeke, to make a deeply personal portrait not only of the artist, but also of Greenaway the father in his battle against time.
British director Peter Greenaway, author of The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982), The Belly of an Architect (1987), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989), Nightwatching (2007) presents the project of his next movie, Walking to Paris, the story of twenty-seven- year-old Costantin Brancusi’s 1903-1904 journey on foot from his native Romania to Paris, where he became a major figure in twentieth century art.
Wednesday November 14 7.00 PM
NYC PREMIERE Acclaimed filmmaker Peter Greenaway – perhaps best known for The Cook, The Thief, His Wife andHer Lover – is a lover of patterns and sequences, a motif that recurs throughout his work. In this playful portrait by his wife, multimedia artist Saskia Boddeke, Greenaway engages in an autobiographical alphabetic word association led by his perceptive 16-year-old daughter, Pip. As the father and daughter run through their ABCs, illustrated by scenes from his lavish body of work, a deeply personal, and surprisingly revealing, portrait of Greenaway emerges.
The art of filmmaking: Masterclass con Greenaway Un viaggio nell’arte di uno dei maestri del cinema mondiale, attraverso l’analisi dello sguardo della macchina da presa, degli elementi di montaggio e di composizione filmica. I partecipanti avranno la possibilità di interagire con il regista gallese, e conoscere con lui i fondamenti teorici, pratici e le componenti tecniche che caratterizzano il suo cinema.
It is an Old Testament belief that “in the beginning was the word”. This cannot be true. According to Genesis, God sent Adam out into “the brave new world” to name everything. How could Adam name everything if there was not first an image or its representation to name? Written language is a very recent thing – not around until five thousand years ago. Compared to cave painting now regarded, by the most recent dating techniques, as being forty-five thousand years old, there is obviously a historical mismatch in text and image. Historically, there were man-made representative images in the world, forty thousand years before text. We can all easily agree that in the beginning was the image, not the word. Text is an after-thought in God’s world.
We have a text-based cinema though cinema claims to be “moving pictures”. Every film you have ever seen starts most assuredly as a text – however simple, however economic – even if written on the back of an envelope in pencil. Film producers demand a text before they can start to finance. As a film-director I cannot give a film producer five paintings, ten prints and a book of drawings and say, “Here’s the evidence for the film we could make together – now you can go and find the money”. The chances are that the film producer will be bewildered.
Text has so many ways to proselytize itself – some three thousand years of lyric poetry from Homer onwards, some four hundred years of the novel since at least the early 1700s and the theatre in its three thousand years of existence always hands down its meaning as text. Why can’t we have a medium that exclusively and with great sophistication is devoted to expressing the meaning of ourselves and the world in image? That medium is surely the cinema. And yet the cinema is slave to text. We could say that cinema is only some one hundred and twenty years of illustrated text and has refused to break the umbilical cord between the screen and the bookshop.
I began my career as a painter and I am unapologetically an enthusiast for the image. Painting broke free of being illustrated text in the 1860s, introducing in the twentieth century, the greatest century that painting has ever known - now we must free cinema from being illustrated text in the twenty-first century to liberate it to become the true seventh art that so many cinema apologists say it is.
Chtchoukine, Matisse, la Danse et la Musique
An immersive video installation by Saskia Boddeke is another highlight of the exhibition. Launched in Europe at the Fondation Louis Vuitton last year, the installation, restaged for AGNSW, engages visitors in an extraordinary dialogue between Shchukin and Matisse and highlights the impact of the works of Matisse on young Russian artists.
SEX AND THE SEA - LUST AND LONGING AMONGST SAILORS
A pin-up girl’s picture on a cabin wall speaks of longing during an excruciatingly slow ocean voyage. Feelings of loneliness, longing for intimacy, homesickness and sexual desire ‒ constant conflicting companions of seafarers on the long voyages. The exhibition illustrates sailors’ fantasies during long sea voyages and the reality that awaited in port. It describes life at home and at sea, deep emotions and physical needs. The sensual exhibition experience has been created by the Dutch installation artist Saskia Boddeke.
Peter Greenaway is educated as painter and thinks in pictures when he creates his scenic taboos. Peter Greenaway is most famous for movies like "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover", "The Pillow Book," "Drowning By Numbers," and "A Zed and Two Noughts." He is not afraid to provoke and we think he can come up with some inspirational ideas and thoughts.
The day before - Wednesday 2 May at 19.00, Cinemateket in Oslo will show Drowning by Numbers from 1988 followed by a Q & A.
Friday 3 May 10.00 AM
Norsk Film Institute
Filmens Hus
Oslo
Over the years first unselfconsciously and then with growing consciousness, I made films about water. It hardly needs to be stressed - water is extremely photogenic whether as cloud, fog, mist, snow, hail, rain, ice, lake, stream, river, sea or ocean. Or tears. Drip, splash, roar, trickle. The Earth is called The Blue Planet and its water is evident from outer space. Our human bodies are sixty per cent water – drain and squeeze away the water and there would be little left. On average around the world, a human needs to take in two litres or four pints of water every day. Seventy one per cent of the earth’s surface is covered in water. The first thing we search for in our desire to contact aliens is the presence of water. We can anticipate the coming Water-Wars. The seas are rising, parts of the world are already newly flooded.
I live in Holland – my front door is three and a half metres below sea-level. Don’t worry - Holland – at least for the moment - is superlatively protected. When a flood happens in New Orleans or a Russian submarine goes missing in the North Sea - the Dutch are the first to be on site. A third of Holland was not there three hundred years ago – it was under the sea. There are eleven thousand miles of dyke built since 1200 to push the sea back.
Water can be a legitimate reason to take your clothes off, to be naked, to be clean, to bathe and to swim - but of course also to drown.
Here are some twenty examples of my foray into filming water. There are many different contexts, fiction and documentary, realistic, surrealistic, prosaic and poetic, straight forward and ironic. A beneficent friend, a terrible master. The biblical flood wiped out Creation. It could do so again.
Friday 23 March 21.30
Labirinto di Franco Mario Ricci
Strada Masone 121- Fontanellato
Parma
The event will be in English. Headphones for simultaneous translation will be included in the cost of the ticket.
Ticket: € 24
Photo of Peter Greenaway by Igor Mandic and stills of Drowning by Numbers & European Showerbath
The fascinations of filmmaker Peter Greenaway, whose motto is "art is life and life is art,"are captured like butterflies and arranged in an alphabet, a form that suits him perfectly as an encyclopedist. In intimate conversations with his perceptive 16-year-old daughter Zoë, we discover the whos, whats and whys about Greenaway. They begin with A, which stands for Amsterdam, but could also stand for autism, Zoë suggests. Greenaway’s boundless creativity, unconstrained flow of words and passion for collecting certainly bring this to mind, and he admits to wearing the label with pride. The playful conversations don’t shy away from more painful topics; we hear that Greenaway hasn’t seen two other children of his for years. And later, heartbroken and in tears, Zoë asks him if for once he’ll stop talking like a commentator. Zoë’s spontaneous questions penetrate Greenaway to the core, enabling his wife, multimedia artist Saskia Boddeke, to make a deeply personal portrait not only of the artist, but also of Greenaway the father in his battle against time.
Wednesday 29 November 19.00
Erich Fried Tage International Literary Festival
Vienna Film Casino
The fascinations of film maker Peter Greenaway, whose motto is "art is life and life is art,"are captured like butterflies and arranged in an alphabet, a form that suits him perfectly as an encyclopedist. In intimate conversations with his perceptive 16-year-old daughter Zoë, we discover the whos, whats and whys about Greenaway. They begin with A, which stands for Amsterdam, but could also stand for autism, Zoë suggests. Greenaway’s boundless creativity, unconstrained flow of words and passion for collecting certainly bring this to mind, and he admits to wearing the label with pride. The playful conversations don’t shy away from more painful topics; we hear that Greenaway hasn’t seen two other children of his for years. And later, heartbroken and in tears, Zoë asks him if for once he’ll stop talking like a commentator. Zoë’s spontaneous questions penetrate Greenaway to the core, enabling his wife, multimedia artist Saskia Boddeke, to make a deeply personal portrait not only of the artist, but also of Greenaway the father in his battle against time.
The Greenaway Alphabet by Saskia Boddeke
November 21 22.15 Premiere IDFA Amsterdam
After years of almost virtual and probably self-willed silence, which is an entertaining enigma in a world where everyone seems to be struggling for attention, Giancarlo Vitali was to be celebrated in Milan. Part of that celebration was to be held in the Milan Manzoni Family House. There are many connections between Giancarlo Vitals and Alessandro Manzoni and this part of the exhibition eschewed the contemporary fetish of white-walled antiseptic cubes and hope to relate the Vitali painterly content to the vocabulary of his life. Accordingly we have introduced materials into the given spaces in three categories: first, the natural history you will discover around Lake Como, second, a domestic comfort and familiarity appreciated largely through the way we dress in the latter years of the 20th century, and thirdly, the ambience of a modest hospital where Gioncarlo Vitali was recently pulled up short to confront his own mortality was ever not in evidence.
Paintings are not of another world, they are of this world. And we should be very happy with that. It is all evidence to help us look and see. And live.
from 05/07/2017 to 24/09/2017
Casa del Manzoni. Milano
1 Via Gerolamo Morone
Italy
"One of this edition's highlights will be the presence of controversial filmmaker Peter Greenaway, o noso our special guest. Born in Wales in 1942 and trained as painter and muralist, the eccentric British filmmaker, scripwriter and produce has been defined by Pela del Álamo as a “filmmaker that, starting with painting, was able to develop all his formal concerns in his first experimental works, where he developed a language that evolved into a more narrative filmmaking, available to all audiences. This versatility makes him one of the most outstanding directors in the 80's and 90's”.
Considered one of the most eccentric personalities in British film, renowned for his personal interpretation of reality, according to our director, his films “combine the personality of experimental cinema with the accessibility of more narrative proposals. He is able to combine, in a way that very few filmmakers is, these two aspects. His interdisciplinary training fits perfectly the interdisciplinary character that Curtocircuíto aims year after year”.
This way Greenaway joins other renowned filmmakers that visited us in previous editions, such as Aki Kaurismaki, Jorgen Leth and Abel Ferrara, and, as they did, will participate in a meeting with the audience. During the meeting Greenaway will use fragments of his films to go through this filmography, as well as answering the questions of the audience. He will also present a screening with films directed by him followed by a Q&A."
Source: Curtocircuito
Curtocircuito 2017
30 september 2017
International Filmfestival of Santiago de Compostela
Opening 2 July - Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto
The natural state of man is of peace and amity - otherwise how has man survived for so long? But we must be vigilant. Despite all injustices, grief and violence, the civilisation of man works, otherwise we would not be here. But we must be vigilant, very vigilant. Nature is neutral but it will not tolerate disaffection. There is a concept for our human purposes we might conveniently call Evil, which is destructive, but Evil can be conquered.
Evil is traditionally represented by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. For human society they traditionally represent the imbalances of disease or pestilence, hunger or famine, violence or war. We struggle to contain and destroy them. We always in the end seek and find peace. Until, that is, the next calamity. Then we have to start all over again. When peace reigns, the four horses of the apocalypse are put away, are stabled, kept quiet and controlled.
The four horsemen are kept quiet in a cellar in Spoleto. And God should be their controller, but is hiding in his/her private hiding place. The last room of the fourth horseman of death, is occupied by a mild creature representing Hope. We can visit the horsemen of the apocalypse in Spoleto and we can consider and contemplate all their many implications, especially for all of us just now - at this historical moment.
This installation will tell in a poetic and metaphorical way about the right for children to be raised in a safe and healthy environment, the right to be educated, the right of the freedom of speech and freedom of Press, the freedom of any religious belief or no religious belief at all as long as it remains peaceful and does no harm. And it hopes to demonstrate universal rights for all.
Concept, Film & direction: Saskia Boddeke
Text: Peter Greenaway
Music: Luca D'Alberto
Horse men: Hendrik Aerts
Hope: Pip Greenaway
Dancer: Dunja Jocic
Festival dei Due Mondi, Spoleto
2 July - 16 July 2017
Ex Museo Civico Spoleto
Photo: DigiDaan
Where next for storytelling - Lecture by Peter Greenaway
"Acclaimed director and artist Peter Greenaway CBE is widely regarded as
one of the most important innovators of our time. His work stretches back to the 1960s and includes the feature The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, and the multimedia project The Tulse Luper Suitcases. Peter comes to Doc/Fest to discuss his work".
Sheffield Doc/Fest
June 11 18.30 Crucible Studio
SHEFFIELD
"How do we represent urban change and technological development in visual and textual form, historically and in the present? How has visual rhetoric been used to normalize the disruption and destruction that accompanies modern ideas of ‘progress’? And what happens when these confident predictions of future relevance fail and we are left with dead-ends and obsolete technologies, the unwanted remains of modernity?
Main speakers: Historian of Technology David Edgerton, Architectural Historian Barbara Penner, Geographer Gillian Rose, Architect Liam Young
Keynote speaker: Filmmaker Peter Greenaway"
Friday 2 June 2017, 10-5:30pm
Victoria & Albert Museum, Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre
Tel Aviv University: The Cinema is Dead, Long Live the Cinema - Lecture by Peter Greenaway
The Yulanda and David Katz Faculty of the Arts
The Steve Tisch School of Film & Television
"THE CINEMA IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE CINEMA"
Lecture by: Peter Greenaway
Film Director, Screenwriter and Artist
9 May Lecture Peter Greenaway
Tuesday, May 9, 2017 18:15 – 19:45
Tel Aviv University
Mexico Building, room 122b
The lecture will be held in English
"Peter Greenaway is one of England’s true auteurs, and since 1965, his films have delighted, challenged and stunned cinema-goers.
With remarkable works such as The Draughtsman's Contract (1982), Prospero's Books (1991) and The Baby of Mâcon (1993), Greenaway remains a vital voice in today’s sometimes staid and unadventurous approach to the medium.
In this talk, Peter Greenaway reflects on the making of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover chaired by Johnny Mains, award-winning editor, author and curator for several Peninsula Arts film series".
Lecture Peter Greenaway
Date: Friday 5 May
Time: 18:30
Venue: The House
Ticket information: £6/£4.20. Free to Plymouth University students via SPiA
Lecture: Origins at Cinematica Festival of Ancona
Peter Greenaway is the guest of honour of Kinematics 2017. Fourth edition of the festival dedicated to the image to the movement that leads to Ancona debate and experimentation in cinema, visual and performance art.
Peter Greenaway will show a special relationship between The Draughtsman's Contract, The Cook the Thief his Wife and her Lover, Nightwatching and Drowning by Numbers.
March 18 Ancona, Cinematica Festival
In inglese con traduzione simultanea
Tags
Peter Greenaway - Keynote speaker - Ancona - Films - Cult Films - Arthouse Movies
Exhibition Paintings Peter Greenaway - Curated by Saskia Boddeke
Chtchoukine, Shchukin, Sjtjoekin. Icônes de l'art Moderne. La Collection Chtchoukine. Icons of Modern Art. The Shchukin Collection.
“I’m interested in the strength of Giovanna, her determination in her relationship with her God. She is even willing to kill in his name. In our interpretation Giovanna realizes her mistakes, no one should be killed in obedience to a God. In wars the children are the first innocent victims. In our concept we embrace the refugee children who are wandering around Europe and connect them to Giovanna”
Verdi Festival – Giovanna d’Arco
Teatro Farnese Parma
Première: 2 October 2016
Dates: 9, 15, en 20 October 2016
On September 9, Saskia opened the exhibition Sex & the Sea.
Sex & the Sea has previously been shown at the Maritiem Museum in Rotterdam and at the Maritime Museum of Sweden.
Saskia Boddeke about this exhibition:
“The exhibition Sex and the Sea can be seen as a poetic immersive experience. The signature of my work is that it scratches at places you do not expect. It might look and feel beautiful and melancholic, but the message I bring can be painfull. I use the esthetic to open up the audience, so they can embrace the message. The theme of the exhibition is the love and hate relation sailors have with the sea. It is about emotions like loneliness, homesickness, but also about the exploitation of women abroad, but also those left at home”.
September 9, 2016 - August 13, 2017
M/S Maritime Museum of Denmark
Ny Kronborgvej 1 - DK-3000 Elsinore
Tuesday – Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Writing to Vermeer Saskia Boddeke
