Deimantas NARKEVIČIUS

At Media City Seoul 2010

Der Kopf  (The Head) 2007

found film footage transferred to DVD, color, sound, 12 min 14 sec

Seoul Museum of Art, Gallery 2-c

Artist Profile

Born 1964; Lives and works in Vilnius

Deimantas Narkevičius has mainly been producing films and videos about the history of Lithuania, especially the experience of Communism and the radical changes in society after that country’s declaration of independence. Narkevičius reconstructs historical facts from a contemporary point of view and challenges the boundaries of documentary film by employing various visual means—such as documentary footage, interviews, animation, photography—as well as voice-overs.

The Head was made on the occasion of Sculpture Projects Münster 07 exhibition in 2007. Having witnessed the widespread dismantling of Soviet monuments around Eastern Europe in the early 1990s after the collapse of Communism, Narkevičius originally planned to transfer the huge bronze Karl Marx monument in Chemnitz, a city in the former East Germany, to Münster for the exhibition. However, when the mayor of Chemnitz rejected the project, Narkevičius instead created The Head, a 35mm film that interweaves historical moments that took place around the monument and personal memories based on “found footage.”

This work, which has been transferred to DVD, combines interviews of innocent children talking about their hopes for the future, people peacefully sunbathing on a riverbank after the war, documentation of the sculptor Lew Kerbel’s construction of the Chemnitz monument, and pictures of the crowd that gathered to see the monument unveiling upon its completion in 1971.