Runa Islam Knihy

This volume, Dogs Devouring Dead Horses, stems from a collaboration between the artist Runa Islam and the designer Manuel Raeder against the backdrop of the exhibition she held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (Projects 95: Runa Islam, 27 May–19 September 2011). This collaboration attempts to give another form to the works after the event of the exhibtion has passed. The artist provided Raeder with stills from the four films on show: Emergence (2011), This Much Is Uncertain (2009–2010), Magical Consciousness (2010) and The House Belongs to Those Who Inhabit It. (2008). According to the exhibition’s curator, Christian Rattemeyer, these four films can be interpreted ‘as a transition from a concern for the linguistic nature of film to one primarily focused on issues of reflection and projection’. Raeder gave back to Islam a ‘sculpture in print’ that does not just document the exhibition and offer a view of the three newer works on display, but draws upon the concepts underpinning the exhibition and the work of the filmmaker. […] (Excerpt from the introduction by Milovan Farronato)

Inspired by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman and others, Runa Islam takes as her point of departure a place, a sequence of scenes or technical analysis borrowed from the history of film. She challenges the traditional narrative process of film by deconstructing it to create her completely new interpretations. Runa Islam explores moments and elements of tension at the point where something is just about to happen: displacement in time and space, symbol-laden landscapes and places, psychological reactions and physical presence, glances and thoughts. Moments are frozen in time and the focus is shifted to everyday situations in combination with dreamlike states allowing for the exploration of the limits of the language of film. This is seen in her early work Tuin (16 mm, 1998), for instance, where she re-works Rainer Werner Fassbinder's famous 360 degree shot from Martha, to expose the construction of the making of the film and show exactly what, as well as who, is involved in the process. The symbolic name of the exhibition – Visages & Voyages – refers to the French words for faces and journeys as well as to the process of filmmaking, with references to the classic techniques of close-ups and longshots.