Cinema

Upstream Gallery is pleased to announce it’s groupshow ‘Upstream Cinema’ presenting videoworks by David Haines, Jeroen Jongeleen, Christóbal León and Jen Liu.

David Haines In his new video ‘BigMac vs the Honey Monster’ Haines has used an article from a British Newspaper as a starting point. The article tells about a lawsuit of two meat factory employees. A thin man that is bullied by his collegues, especially a corpulent man (nicknamed the honeymonster) that belly flops him in a violent way. Using the full text of the article Haines composed a opera-like song which is making an interesting combination with the poetic images from his video. David Haines’ works (his drawings as well as his videos) are dealing with the structures of mythologies, with as special interest in the duel-structures (poor-rich, black-white, heaven-earth etc.) David Haines was born in Nottingham, UK and now lives and works in Amsterdam. His recent exhibitions include ''The Cyber Mythologies" at Luisa Strina Gallery, Sao Paulo,"Drawing Typologies" at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and (in the UK) the Hayward touring exhibition 'The End of the Line - Attitudes in Drawing' at MIMA, Middlesbrough; The Bluecoat, Liverpool; Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery and The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh.

Jeroen Jongeleen Jeroen Jongeleen show his recent video ‘Influenza / A Little Movement’ in which 9 animations made from actual photographs (about 2000 unique pictures each animation) of stickers placed in the streets from around the world. Being shown as a videoinstallation on 9 separate monitors one can see elements and details of the cities newyork USA, paris F, eindhoven NL, amsterdam NL, paramaribo SUR, christchurch NZ, antwerpen B, st'gallen CH, s gravenhagen NL and compare them to one another. Jeroen Jongeleen lives and works in Rotterdam. His recent exhibitions include “Backjumps” Seoul, “Dancing Black Square” International Film Festival Rotterdam, “Crop Rotation” Marianne Boesky Gallery NY, “Umbau” Kunsthalle St. Gallen and “Brave New World” Cobra Museum Amstelveen.

Christóbal León The work of Christóbal León presented in the exhibition consists of three Stop-Motion videos partially inspired by fairy tales aesthetics. LUCIA and LUIS are two Stop-Motion videos made in collaboration with Joaquin Cociña (drawer) and Niles Atallah (filmmaker). They were produced taking photographs of a sequence of drawings made on the walls of a room and the transformations of the things in this place. The two videos are the two sides of a love story expressed in passing, inconclusive thoughts. DER KLEINERE RAUM is a Stop-Motion video made in collaboration with Nina Wehrle in which a young boy is trapped in a cardboard box. The film registers the apparition, deapparition and transformation of figures made out of newspaper and masking tape. The work of Christóbal León often finds direct or indirect inspiration in children literature, using and resituating their narratives and visual aesthetics. Cristóbal León is a Chilean artist working mainly with animation films. He was born in Santiago de Chile in 1980. Between 1999 and 2005, he studied Art and Design in PUC. In 2008 he moved to Berlin and since 2009 he is living in Amsterdam as a participant of "De Ateliers". Recent exhibitions include “7a Bienal do Mercosul” Porto Alegre, Brazil, ”Beijing 798 Art Biennale 2009″, Beijing, China, ”Comunidad Ficticia”, Centro Cultural Matucana 100, Santiago de Chile and “After the Light”, Radialsystem, Berlin, Germany.

Jen Liu Jen Liu's videos draw on diverse histories to construct fictions that connect with and interrogate contemporary society. In her films Liu uses dream-like non-linear narratives with fantastical props and costumes, infused with a delicious reverie of music and the absurd, but which always retain a melancholia that subverts and enhances our observations in the work and the worlds we inhabit. Jen Liu was born in New York in 1976, and has exhibited internationally, with recent exhibitions at Kunsthaus Zurich; Royal Academy, London; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Czama Gallery, Warsaw; and De Hallen Museum, Haarlem.