Pawel Althamer

Pawel Althamer's Real Time Movie consists of a performance of a 30-minute segment of daily life, and a one-and-a-half minute film trailer created to promote that performance. During the performance, which is set on a busy corner in front of the museum, actors will assume the roles of typical Pittsburgh passersby, crossing the street, waiting for a bus, or idling in a car at a traffic light. If Real Time Movie is devoid of drama it nonetheless has an epic quality. The fact that Althamer chooses to remake with much pain and labor a bit of the world in real time is not only a tour de force of artistic craft akin to the creation of a photo-realistic painting, but also a gesture of belief in the power of an individual to re-envision society. We are all actors Althamer seems to say, and it is up to us to figure out how we want to change the world through our daily performance.

Real Time Movie will be performed at 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays in October 2004 and on Saturday, March 18, 2005 at the corner of Forbes Avenue and Craig Street. The trailer for the film plays continuously in the museum’s lobby and at the following Pittsburgh theatres during October: Cinemagic Squirrel Hill and Manor Theatres; Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Harris and Regent Square Theatres and Melwood Screening Room; Southside Works Cinema.

Selected Bibliography:

Bonami, Francesco. "Requiem for a Dream." Flash Art 34, no. 223 (March–April 2002): 68–69.

Cameron, Dan. "Manifesta 3." Artforum 39, no. 4 (December 2000): 142.

Przywara, Andrzej. Pawel Althamer. Exhibition catalogue. Basel: Kunsthalle Basel, 1997.

Szymczyk, Adam. "The Annotated Althamer." Afterall (May 2002): 14–23.

Szymczyk, Adam, and Andrzej Przywara. Pawel Althamer. Exhibition catalogue. Warsaw: Galeria Foksal, 1996.

Links:

Polish Culture: Pawel Althamer

ArtMargins Interview