28 November 2008 – 8 February 2009

The Kunsthaus Zürich shows films by artist Runa Islam

Born in Dhaka in 1970, living and working in London, Islam subjects filmic illusions to critical scrutiny while drawing a bead on the act of seeing, which she understands as both sight and recognition. Her poetic films are visually powerful documents, interlacing analysis with sensibility on multiple levels.

AN ARTISTIC DECELERATION OF TIME
Islam’s ‘First Day of Spring’ (2005) is a group portrait of rickshaw drivers in Dhaka. There are some 500,000 such drivers in the artist’s hometown, most of them drawn from the countryside to try their luck at earning their family’s daily bread in the big city. The government blames the rickshaws for Dhaka’s endless traffic jams and is forever banning them from the streets. ‘First Day of Spring’, however, betrays none of this hectic atmosphere. The rickshaw drivers sit comfortably on their bicycles, apparently content to enjoy the eponymous occasion in peace. And it’s true, they can: because Islam has paid them to skive, and pose for her camera instead. Such a carnevalesque reversal is entirely typical of the artist. ‘In ‘First Day of Spring’,’ she says, ‘I deliberately placed the rickshaw drivers at centre stage, in contrast to their true role, both socially and economically at the margins.’ As a work of art, too, the piece challenges traditional cinematic technique. Islam’s individual takes are long, almost static, and her camera approaches the group of rickshaw drivers from a range of perspectives, pausing every now and again to record the gentle spring breeze blowing through the foliage, then zooming in to capture individual faces before the drivers take off into the evening sunlight. With its subtle intensity and visual power, ‘First Day of Spring’ is an enthralling work of art, both a critique of cinematic legerdemain and an exposé of socio-political phenomena.

Address

Kunsthaus Zürich
Heimplatz 1
8001 Zürich
phone +41 44 253 84 84
http://www.kunsthaus.ch

Opening Hours

Tuesday-Thursday 10 a.m. - 9 p.m., Friday-Sunday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., closed on Monday.

Description of the Museum

The Kunsthaus houses one of Switzerland’s most important collections. The most important collection of works by Alberto Giacometti has been on display in bright new rooms since June 2002. In other rooms there are exquisite Medieval sculptures and altar panels, exceptional Flemish and Italian Baroque painting, and the zenith of Swiss 19th and 20th century art represented by the best known works of artists such as Johann Heinrich Fuseli and Ferdinand Hodler.

The collection includes also the largest collection of works by Edvard Munch outside Norway, important paintings by Picasso and the Expressionists Kokoschka, Beckmann and Corinth. There is also a significant group of works by Claude Monet.

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