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Matta WAGNEST | |
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What at first appears to be a cryptic number, 71191, is not a phone number nor is it an international STD code or a PIN number. However a small intervention in the random succession of digits will swiftly provide an explanation: add a couple of dots to indicate the date 7.1.1991. From today's point of view it is not very easy anymore to ascertain the original reference in these seven short video programmes, which have similarities with news broadcasts even though the event being alluded to was of major global political significance ? not least because it was declared a "media event". Nowhere in the videos, though, is it specifically stated that this is the date of the launch of Operation Desert Storm by US troops in Iraq during the second Gulf War. The precise date in the title of the work alludes to a specific historic incident, although at the same time Matta Wagnest places the event beyond any historical context to the extent that she restages a fictive incident as a countdown to her own exhibition Ein Jahr Danach (A Year Later) while refraining from identifying any specific people or events. It is always the same globe turning on the monitor, and the crosses of a grid target very different parts of the world in passing. The accompanying headlines in German are striking and imply military activity but could equally relate to different events: Programme 7: The ultimatum has expired! [while the view of the world remains dramatically unchanged]. From the start to the end of a period of time. ? Programme 8: The situation is deteriorating! [while the view of the world remains dramatically unchanged]. From the start to the end of a period of time. ? Programme 9: The plan looks like it is failing! [while the view of the world remains dramatically unchanged]. From the start to the end of a period of time (etc.). With the work 711991 Matta Wagnest has transferred a real event and its presentation on TV into an artistic arrangement, without resorting to documentary film techniques. Instead she works with a precision comparable to that employed by powerful politicians in planning their strategic operations. |
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Exhibitions |
711991, 1992 |
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Blau-Gelbe Galerie, NÖ Landesgalerie, Wien, Austria |
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Specifications |
45sec no sound color/bw PAL |
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Copyright |
Matta Wagnest |
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Copy to see |
Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum, St. Pölten |
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