Last Year at Marienbad redux

Last Year at Marienbad redux is an exhibition, public program and publication that together examine how fictional narratives develop over time to form accepted knowledge of people, places, events and things. Inspired by the unconventional cinematic techniques such as nonlinear narrative and repetitive language used in the 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad (directed by Alain Resnais, with screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet), the exhibition Last Year at Marienbad redux features works of art that deploy these and other devices: editing, character development, plot, mise-en-scène and montage to disrupt, challenge and conflate what is understood as fact and fiction. The project explores how memory, meaning and, ultimately, an understanding of reality are shaped.

The Marienbad Sessions is a program of free public events held inside the exhibition site amidst the works of art. The events include a listening session taking the form of an open-ended essay composed of sound hosted by Dan Fox; a reading of a script about the mythology surrounding the figure of Gordon Matta-Clark written and performed by Jessamyn Fiore; a lecture on 1960s avant-garde film by Jens Hoffmann; a discussion of the exhibition with James Voorhies; and a screening of short films by Berlin-based artist and filmmaker Maya Schweizer and conversation with the curator. The Marienbad Sessions seeks to reclaim the space of exhibition as a public sphere, returning it to a learning site where groups of visitors experience real-time, lived engagement visually and intellectually among works of art on exhibit.

The Marienbad Papers is a book produced as part of Last Year at Marienbad redux. It is a hybrid publication combining characteristics of an art journal, catalogue essay, screenplay and art criticism, featuring a series of newly commissioned texts by Jennifer Allen, Jessamyn Fiore, Dan Fox, Jens Hoffmann and James Voorhies. The Marienbad Papers will be released at a closing event on October 26. The book is made possible with a grant from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.

About Bureau for Open Culture Bureau for Open Culture is an itinerant, nonprofit curatorial and publishing initiative that receives support from museums, universities and foundations to make projects in dialogue with contemporary artists and writers. It combines curating, education, design, communication and publishing to position the art institution as an overall form of critical practice, uniting art and education into a singular cohesive mode of exhibition making.

About EFA Project Space EFA Project Space, a program of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts is a collaborative cross-disciplinary arts venue founded on the belief that art is directly connected to the individuals that produce it, to the communities they are a part of, and to contemporary life and that by providing an arena for exploring these connections, we empower artists to forge new partnerships and encourage the expansion of ideas.

Last Year at Marienbad redux

artists:
Jennifer Allen, Keren Cytter, Tacita Dean, Jessamyn Fiore, Dan Fox, Jens Hoffmann, Iman Issa, David Maljkovic, Jan Mancuska, Gordon Matta-Clark, Josh Tonsfeldt, Allan Sekula & Noel Burch, Maya Schweizer.

curators:
James Voorhies