Exhibition — Nov 19 until Dec 29, 2005

Paradocs II shows video and photo works that are a combination of documentary and staged images. For a long time the basic principle in documentary film and photography was to capture reality as exactly as possible. The strict separation between fact and fiction is however shifting. In his small exhibition Harry Shunk calls the law of gravity seriously into question, thereby presenting an impossible reality.

In the work of Robert Longo the figures likewise find themselves in the void, in a choreography of leaps and falls. The photographer Juul Hondius deliberately stages his documentary images. Gunther Rambow’s posters show images in which reality transforms itself to the level of theatre. These artists investigate the tension between the ‘real’ and manipulated environment.

Their characters move and act against a background in which authentic and staged content constantly alternate with one another. The images do not immediately divulge their meaning, and unsettle the concept of authenticity. That leaves the us, as viewers, with an uneasy feeling.

Works in the exhibition:
Juul Hondius:
- Bus, 2001 (photo)
- UN-Defender, 2000 (photo)

Sam Taylor-Wood:
- Travesty of a Mockery, 1995 (video)

Robert Longo:
- Men in the Cities, 1979-82 (photo’s)

Harry Shunk:
- Saut dans le vide, Fontenay-aux-Roses, 1960 (photo)
- Yves Klein, le saut dans le vide,  Fontenay-aux-Roses, October 23 1960 (photo)
- Yves Klein, 1960 (photo)

Ulay/Marina Abramovic:
- Photosequence “Relation in time”, 1977
- Relation in time, 1977 (video)

and posters by Barbara Kruger, Martin Kippenberger, Paul Colin, Tadanori Yoko, Gunter Rambow and Keisuke Nagatomo.