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apexart291 church street new york, ny 10013t: 212.431.5270 f: 646.827.2487info@apexart.org www.apexart.org

apexart is a 501(c)(3), not-for-profit, tax-deductible organization and does notengage in sales or sales related activ ities. apexart is a registered trademark.

apexart 's exhibitions and public programs are supported in part by the AndyWarhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Edith C. Blum Foundation, CarnegieCorporation of New York, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and with publicfunds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the NewYork State Council on the Arts.

apexart 2008ISBN-10: 1-933347-25-2ISBN-13: 978-1-933347-25-7

Miscellaneous images from videos in exhibition.

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The videos that are presented in this exhi bi-tion were produced between 2002 and2007. Each of these videos combines a theo-retical text that is written and spoken by theauthor and film footage fragments takenout of different movies and film documenta-tion. At first glance these videos remind thespectator of the videos and short films thatare used today to transmit knowledge, tocomment on the news, to spread religiousand ide ological propaganda, or to be used inthe framework of education. One can assertthat in our time video, instead of text, becamethe leading vehicle for transmitting informa-tion of any kind. Not accidentally the con-temporary radical religious movements use

Boris GroysThinking in LoopThree Videos on Iconoclasm,Ritual & Immortality

Opening reception

February 20, 6-8pm

Talk by Boris GroysFebruary 29, 7pmTribeca Grand HotelScreening Room2 Avenue of the Americas

On viewFebruary 20 to March 29, 2008

ThinkThree V

The Immortal Bodies, 28:40The Religion as Medium, 24:10Iconoclastic Delights, 19:45

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are associations and parallels between textand image, but also there are contrasts andbreaks. The image is not used here as anillustration that has a goal to make the textmore comprehensible, to make certain theo-retical positions more evident. Rather, thevideos produce a certain gap between whatwe hear and what we see they even makeit especially difficult for the spectator to fol-low the text and image simultaneously. Inthis way the presented videos problematizethe relationship between text and image thatusually seems to be guaran teed by the struc-turing of the video material. In fact, these

videos transmit no information rather theyreflect on the difficulties of such a transmission.These difficulties are the main topic of all threetexts and these difficulties reflect themselves inthe shape of the videos themselves. Text andimage correspond to each other, but theyremain heterogeneous.

This heterogeneity is underlined by the fact thatthe videos do not inform the spectator about thefilms or documentaries used as sources for thefilm footage. The reason for this is simpleenough: The film footage takes on here a com-pletely different function it is integrated in a

completely different whole so that it becomescompletely cut off from its origin. Here theauthor uses the technique of appropriation thatis well established in the art world but is not aswidespread in the film industry. The reason forthis different approach to the technique ofappropriation is obvious enough. Film tradition-ally was, and to a certain degree remains, a massproduct. It is destined to be seen by big audi-ences in film theaters. But in our time the socialplace and use of film have changed: Increasingly,film gets digitalized and, as a video, filmbecomes archived and shelved in personal videolibraries. Or it is shown in the framework of an