while i’m still parsing my thoughts-in-total about the Biennial, i’m thrilled with one of the artists in its showcase: filmmaker and poet Amie Siegel.
carolyn & i spent saturday sequestered in the Whitney’s black box theater, where offerings ranged from the bad (Coco Fusco’s unintentionally self-parodic Operation Atropos) to the excellent (Leslie Thornton’s Let Me Count the Ways 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . 6). we took a couple of hours to roam the other exhibits, and then, almost on a whim, we came back for an early evening screening of Amie Siegel’s DDR.
Siegel’s film had an inner logic that seemed to set it apart from almost all of the other pieces i had seen that day. i’ll admit that as a reader, writer, and activist, i don’t stray far from my chosen disciplines, so attending the Biennial felt somewhat akin to roaming a museum blindfolded. much of the art required me to engage senses and sensibilities that i’ve barely begun to identify, let alone liven. i wasn’t sure how to experience much of the work. but somehow, DDR was different.
DDR is an extended, multi-layered exploration of memory, culture, music, surveillance, “Indian hobbyists,” hipsters, and odd elevators of (and beyond) East Germany’s Stasi era. the film asks the viewer to pause and meditate on apparently unrelated images and people that, with time, reveal their meaning and their purpose. each skein of the story is equally elongated, and almost equally filigreed by commentary, camera work, and complimentary segments. half-way through the movie, i found myself scrabbling for the program in my bag, whispering to carolyn, trying to figure out: was this filmmaker a poet? she had to be. and she was.
it was a relief to find this kinship — perhaps like hearing someone speak your own native language, fluently and respectfully, a crowd of hyper polyglots. i’m looking forward to checking out her poetry, her essays, and her other films. i hope that they will be as carefully made and rewarding as DDR.
