Filipa César: F FOR FAKE

Vernissage: Tuesday, March 1, 10 p.m.

"F for Fake" is a project on truth, lies, forgery and authorship concerning both art and life. Using Orson Welles last feature film as her point of departure, Filipa César adds one more level to its meta-narrative nature by introducing 5 new characters, a lawyer, an actor, a writer, an art-critic and a guinea pig, who play themselves and sometimes assume the roles of the characters Elmyr de Hory, Oja Kodar, Orson Welles, Clifford Erving and Howard Hughes. Quoting Welles’ editing techniques, Filipa César underlines the duality between form and content in the original movie, namely the non correspondence that can be founded between the, quite modern, concerns with expertise and the author’s signature and the, quite post-modern, TV-based structure that spells out an altogether different reality: a reality which is acutely aware of its own medial grounding, at once mocking and glorifying a former reality generated by former media, namely painting and writing. Using video as a means of commenting on the cinematographic device, which was always already commenting on the literary device, Filipa César makes the leap into the electronic era, coming full circle with Orson Welles. ‘F for Fake’ becomes an ongoing process of juxtaposition and insertion where we are never in or out of the film since in and out have long become a mere point of view. Underlying this statement with an ironical dash, Filipa César displays her actors posing as viewers in the project’s photographs. The project will be displayed as an installation of VHS videotapes shaping a giant F, accompanied by a video projection displaying Filipa’s ‘F for Fake’. The audience will not be allowed to take possession of the videotapes but theft will not be prosecuted.

Text by Ana Pinto

Filipa Cesar
F FOR FAKE