Montréal, January 12, 2011 — Descending the Fraser River while filming a projection of all three movies of The Lord of the Rings: that is the remarkable odyssey embarked upon by Kevin Schmidt for his video Epic Journey. The Musée d’art contemporain presents the Montréal premiere of Epic Journey, 2010, a mammoth, eleven-and-a-half hour work by Canadian artist Kevin Schmidt, from January 12 to March 13, 2011.
In this video work, Schmidt takes up that monument of pop culture, the celebrated Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson and based on the novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. The title Epic Journey refers to both the adventures of Frodo and his companions in the Fellowship of the Ring and the epic undertaking of Schmidt and his technical crew. During a night-time descent of the Fraser River in British Columbia, the artist shot a screening of the complete trilogy, using two boats: one for the screen and the film projector, the other for the camera and technical crew. In this exploration of an experience of time, he intertwines different landscapes (the Fraser and the lands travelled by the hobbits) and different times (the original film and the video). Epic Journey employs some of Schmidt’s favourite strategies?visible device, duration, staging?to examine such themes as landscape, music and pop culture.
Born in 1972 in Ottawa, Kevin Schmidt lives and works in Vancouver. After graduating from the Emily Carr Institute of Art Design, he came to public notice with a showing of his work at the Helen Pitt Gallery in Vancouver in 1997. An active presence on the international scene, particularly in Europe and North America, he has exhibited at Participant Inc in New York, and at the Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart, in 2008. That same year, he was honoured with the Shadbolt Foundation’s VIVA Award, presented to mid-career artists in B.C. This is Schmidt’s first exhibition at the MAC.
Organization
Louise Simard, head of multimedia events at the Musée and of the Projections series, organized the Kevin Schmidt presentation.
Meet the artist
A meeting with artist Kevin Schmidt will take place (in English) on Friday, February 4 at 5 p.m. in BWR Hall.
Epic Journey at Nuit blanche
Festival goers will be able to experience something unique at Nuit blanche at the MAC this coming February 26, namely an uninterrupted screening of Schmidt’s eleven-and-a-half hour work Epic Journey. Die-hard fans of the famous Lord of the Rings trilogy can settle in at 2:30 p.m. to follow the exploits of the Fellowship of the Ring as reshot by Schmidt on board a boat drifting down British Columbia’s Fraser River. Viewing this work is a performance in itself! After all, life isn’t always a long, quiet river…
Source and Information
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Anne Dongois
T. 514 826-2050
[email protected]
