Hysteresis is a solo exhibition featuring an eponymously titled trilogy of three films by artist and filmmaker Morgan Quaintance including: Another Decade (2018), Anne, Richard and Paul (2018), and Early Years (2019), an account of one woman’s first generation diasporic experience in Britain newly commissioned by KARST.
Each film deals with how past events have informed our socio-cultural present. From art world debates of the 1990’s to experimental music and developments in a British postwar family’s life, the trilogy’s ostensibly disparate subject matter is unified through a shared aesthetic language of 16mm film, standard definition video, archival footage and a commitment to progressive thought and action.
Biography
Morgan Quaintance is a London-based artist and writer. His moving-image work has been shown recently at LIMA, Amsterdam, Kunstmuseum, Bonn, Jerwood Space, London, the 14th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, London Film Festival 2018, November Film Festival, the Palace International Film Festival, and Videonalle.17.
Early Years (2019, 15:33), an account of one woman’s first generation diasporic experience in Britain, shot in 16mm and newly commissioned by KARST.
Another Decade (2018, 26:50), a montage of 1990s-era archival video and recent footage, exhuming cultural debates from history’s grave to reanimate a once-promised future, still to arrive.
Anne, Richard and Paul (2018, 15:10), a portrait of the experimental music and performance trio Bow Gamelan Ensemble. Comprising archival footage, newly shot 16mm film and standard definition video, the work focuses on the group’s unconventional outlook and cooperative spirit.
Each film, in the roughly hour-long programme, deals with how past events have informed our socio-cultural present. From art world debates of the 1990s to experimental music and developments in a British postwar family’s life, the trilogy’s ostensibly disparate subject matter is unified through a shared aesthetic language of 16mm film, standard definition video, archival footage and a commitment to progressive thought and action.
In addition to the trilogy of three films is Pegged Currency (2019), an installation echoing post-election billboard vandalism in Dakar, Senegal. On a recent trip to the country, Quaintance saw how anonymous individuals and groups around the city defaced billboards by throwing paint over images of the candidates they were against. The result was that when driving on highways and through streets, these billboards created a rolling panorama of accidental gestural abstraction.
By defacing an image of the French and Senegalese presidents, Emmanuel Macron and Macky Sall, Quaintance borrows the vandals device to draw reference to an enduring legacy of French colonisation, the West African Franc, or CFA. It is a currency pegged, or linked, to the Euro, a state of affairs that functions to the detriment of Senegal’s economic development. Economist Ndongo Samba Sylla outlines the broad economic picture of this arrangement in the featured video interview.
Morgan Quaintance is a London-based artist and writer. His moving-image work has been shown recently at LIMA, Amsterdam, Kunstmuseum, Bonn, Jerwood Space, London, the 14th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, London Film Festival 2018, November Film Festival, the Palace International Film Festival, and Videonalle.17.
Hysteresis is a solo exhibition featuring an eponymously titled trilogy of three films by artist and filmmaker Morgan Quaintance including: Another Decade (2018), Anne, Richard and Paul (2018), and Early Years (2019), an account of one woman’s first generation diasporic experience in Britain newly commissioned by KARST