temporary stedelijk 2
stedelijk museum presents:tuin(garden) by runa islam
From June 23 on, the Stedelijk Museum presents the installation Tuin (Garden) by Runa Islam as part of Temporary Stedelijk 2. Tuin deconstructs visual techniques that are used to convey narratives.
Tuin is actually a reconstruction of a scene from the film Martha (1973) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Islam takes an archetypal scene pivotal to many romantic movies—the first encounter between two strangers—and subjects it to relentless analysis, recreating it in meticulous detail.
The two parallel projections in which this enigmatic encounter takes place are in grainy black-and-white. Almost documentary in nature, these moving images, shot in video, might appear to observe the couple objectively. In the center of the space, on a screen positioned at a right angle to the wall, a single version of the same scene plays, this time filmed in color on 16mm and relating to cinema.
The installation encourages the viewer to walk around the screen, thus repeating the movement in the three projections. Tuin was acquired for the museum's collection in 2002. The use of black-and-white and color, as well as a sculptural approach to the space, are all typical of Islam's work.
Runa Islam (b. 1971 in Dhaka, Bangladesh,) lives and works in London. After studying at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam), she continued her education at the Royal College of Art, London. In 2005, she participated in the Venice Biennale, and in 2008 she was nominated for the Turner Prize, which is awarded annually to British artists under 50 years of age.
In addition to group exhibitions at Tate Modern (2001), the Biennale in Istanbul (2003) and the Venice Bienniale (2005), Islam has also had solo exhibitions at White Cube, London; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Malaga; and MUMOK, Vienna. Currently she has an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in the series Projects 95.
