SKIP - film.at
Musik, Leinwand, Öl… (Music, Canvas, Oil...): painted with the camera
An audiovisual gallery viewing of a different kind:
paintings by the blind artist Sergej Popolsin combine with music to make a film without words.
Review by Franco Schedl 7 February 2020
A blind artist makes a film. That sounds doubly remarkable, and like a huge challenge. Just under an hour long, the work emerged out of a project planned a few years back. Paintings by the Russian artist Sergej Popolsin, who lost his sight at the age of twenty-six and has been living in Austria since the mid-1990s, inspired Evgeny Masloboev to compose several pieces of music in 2004, but the planned collaboration, provisionally entitled Farbe im Ton (Colour in Sound) was never realized. Eleven years later, Popolsin had the idea of making a film on the basis of these compositions, completing it in 2018. In Musik, Leinwand, Öl…, sound and image result in a fascinating symbiosis, inviting us to an audiovisual gallery viewing of a different kind.
Invitation to contemplate the images
Sometimes the music sounds almost menacing, then by turns full of playful lightness, as if inviting us to dance. More than twenty paintings are assigned to the pieces of music, and each picture is preceded by a brief scene, not claiming to tell a continuous story but offering a sort of snapshot in order to evoke a particular mood. The protagonist in the eye of the camera is always ‘the artist’, played by Popolsin himself. However, this remains a filmic figure who should not be identified one-to-one with the actual artist – despite the incorporation of unmistakably autobiographical elements.
Scenes from the life of a painter
The painter arranges sprays of blossom in a jar, stands with his easel in a wintry landscape and shortly afterwards happens upon a flower in the snow. But we also see him loading the chambers of a revolver with bullets, as if about to play Russian roulette. To the sound of the gunshot a painter’s brush falls to the floor, leaving a splash of red paint on the parquet. (In 1990 Popolsin did actually ‘play Russian roulette with God’ as he puts it, losing his sight in attempting to take his own life.) Then the artist stands in front of a self-portrait, exploring it by touch, or sits down in a cemetery. Later he walks the streets of Vienna and we are confronted with rush-hour traffic on the city’s beltway; driving in a car in the rain is followed by a visit to a jazz club. In another scene he makes a special sailing boat for a little girl out of a plastic shoe sole and sheet of paper, and finally, in an image laden with symbolism, a blind man cautiously feels his way over broken rocks towards a rock face.
The painter seems to love being outdoors, and thus the film is accompanied by a wealth of images of nature through the changing seasons, from thawing ice and rushing meltwater torrents, spring blossom, resting in a summer cornfield to leafy autumn impressions.
Successful experiment
The camera mostly starts by moving over the paintings, showing only details to start with, which we have to put together ourselves, before pulling back to reveal the whole picture. Popolsin truly succeeds in painting with the camera, even though it is not actually him who is filming but his wife, who came to the project without any experience at all in this field. She followed his precise instructions as outlined on storyboards, achieving an astonishing degree of perfection. A strong urge to artistic form is noticeable here, resulting in precisely calculated filmic images.
Musik, Leinwand, Öl… is thus a successful experiment, challenging our eyes and ears alike, and attempting a new form of exploring images.
Premiere in the presence of the film-makers, Sunday 23 February, 11 am at the Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus Wien.
HILFSGEMEINSCHAFT der Blinden und Sehschwachen Österreichs (Self-help community organization of blind and vision-impaired people in Austria)
‘The might of images’
The blind artist Sergej Popolsin pushes the limits
11 February 2020 by Gabriele Frisch
Film and painting are first and foremost visual media. The fact that the blind artist Sergej Popolsin creates expressive paintings is impressive enough. But now the artist has conceived and produced the 58-minute feature film Musik, Leinwand, Öl … in only three years. His constant companion on the project is his wife Rosmarie Spitzer, who was standing behind the camera for the first time.
Twenty episodes from Popolsin’s life are to be seen in separate short film sequences which supply the impulses for his creative work as an artist. Each short presents one or more paintings that belong to the same thematic sphere. The music was composed by Evgeny Masloboev, with whom Popolsin worked on a project entitled Farbe im Ton (Colour in Sound) in 2004. Evgeny created musical compositions based on more than two dozen of Sergej’s paintings.
Popolsin does not see his film as autobiography: ‘I shouldn’t be identified one-to-one with the figure of the artist in the film. Although all of the paintings are mine, I have merely attempted to answer the question “How are paintings made?” in metaphorical terms, without words, and not to talk about myself. Above all, I found it interesting to listen intently to the music and get to know it, to attempt to decode it and think up and shape video subjects to go with it.’
The artist planned everything down to the last detail – from the schematic pictorial compositions he drew himself, the positioning of the spotlights, choice of perspective, arrangement of objects to the video and audio editing.
The film Musik, Leinwand, Öl … has won awards at four international film festivals.
The premiere will take place at 11 am on 23 February 2020 at the Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus Wien.
Detailed information on the life and work of the artist can be found on his website.
WIENER ZEITUNG.at
Feature documentary about the blind artist Sergej Popolsin
21 February 2020 by Matthias Greuling
This Sunday, 23 February, the Künstlerhaus Kino in Vienna will transform itself into a showcase of interdisciplinary arts, when the Russian painter Sergej Popolsin shows his works in a film produced specially for this purpose and directed by him, even though the artist is blind. The consequence of a suicide attempt in his twenties, for Popolsin his blindness has become what motivates his art, and the film captures what concerns him.
Music and canvas
In 2004 Popolsin collaborated with the musician Evgeny Masloboev on a project called Farbe im Ton (Colour in Sound) which combined two dozen music compositions with paintings by Popolsin. While the project was never realized, the pictures and the music were preserved. In 2015 Popolsin started work on a film using this existing material: the tone poems combined with the paintings result in an artistic panopticon, fusing music and images, in which one could not function without the other. Only in union with each other do the two art forms become a film. The film is divided into twenty self-contained short films, each with its own theme, that is, the painting it focuses on.
‘I have merely attempted as a painter to answer in metaphorical terms, without words, the question put by visitors to the exhibition: “How are the paintings made?” – and not to talk about myself. At the same time I wanted to discover the points that reflect Evgeny’s music in my paintings,’ explains Popolsin, who was responsible for the screenplay, direction, production design and of course for the paintings.
This ambitious art project is being given a single screening on this coming Sunday at the Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus Wien.
KURIER - events.at
Sergej Popolsin: Musik, Leinwand, Öl…
A film by Sergej Popolsin. Premiere and meeting with the film-makers.
A film about paintings and an artist. No words, just music.
Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus Wien 23 February 2020 / 11 am
Music forms the foundations of the film. Twenty compositions written in various styles – from avant-garde to jazz, acid rock to improvisations on the acoustic guitar – are arranged in a unified series of subjects and translated into twenty discrete, self-contained short films. Each of them has a basic theme – the painting it focuses on. All are united by the main figure – an artist, the individual who painted them.
He paints outdoors, suffers from depression, recalls his attempted suicide and clinical death, decides to travel, perhaps abroad. There he goes for walks in the countryside; another exhibition, low spirits, joy and nostalgia.
The film has a metaphorical ending: a blind man stumbles with a white stick across a sun-drenched expanse of broken rocks, unaware that a rock face is rearing up in front of him. This makes it clear that the whole film is a metaphorical narrative about the loneliness of a creative personality in the world that surrounds them, about an artist who seeks harmony, and about an individual who is in search of himself.
FALTER.at
Musik, Leinwand, Öl…
Film review by Michael Omasta
23 February 2020 / 11 am, Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus Wien
How to describe this film, which lasts just under an hour, has no dialogue and a blind Russian painter living in Vienna as its protagonist? Musik, Leinwand, Öl ... is a cinematic tone poem. We see Sergej Popolsin as he goes for a walk, paints, and reflects, along with twenty of his paintings, corresponding to the same number of compositions by Evgeny Masloboev. The plot remains allusive; close-ups rely on tactile cineastic effect. ‘The story is a surface’, says a text from 1928 by the avant-garde film-maker Germaine Dulac. ‘The seventh art, the art of the screen, is the depth that extends beneath this surface made perceptible: the elusive essence of music.’ That may be one way to describe this film.
Austrian premiere in the presence of the film-makers.
NEUES WIENER JOURNAL (НОВЫЙ ВЕНСКИЙ ЖУРНАЛ)
Musik, Leinwand, Öl… A film by Sergej Popolsin
Published 3 March 2020
The hero of this article – Sergej Popolsin – has long been a familiar figure to us. We ran an interview with the artist in the ‘Neues Wiener Journal – НВЖ‘, and one of his paintings hangs in place of honour in the editor’s office.
On the last Sunday in February Sergej Popolsin’s film MUSIK, LEINWAND, ÖL… premiered at the Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus Wien. This event might have passed by unnoticed, but for Sergej being known to us as a blind artist who lives in Vienna.
There have been numerous exhibitions of his work, both in Russia and in European countries, but this time he was presenting himself from an unexpected angle – as the writer and maker of a video project ‘… about paintings and an artist. No words, just music.’ Sergej made his 58-minute feature film, which belongs to the genre of art-house movies, more or less on his own, with the sole aid of his wife Rosmarie Spitzer who operated the camera.
In the autumn of 2018, when the film was finished, she took on the role of producer, entering it at several international film festivals. In winter and spring 2019 Sergej’s film won awards at two Canadian and two Californian festivals in the ‘Jury Member’s Choice‘ and ‘Experimental Film‘ categories.
The backstory to how this film got made is interesting. Back in 2004 the painter Sergej Popolsin and his friend, musician Evgeny Masloboev were working on a project to which they’d given the title Farbe im Ton (Colour in Sound). Evgeny composed tone poems to almost three dozen of Sergej’s paintings. Unfortunately this painting and music project was never realized, but the music was preserved. In 2015 Sergej had the idea of making a film to this music, and after securing Evgeny’s consent to use his compositions, he began work on it.
As the author of the whole video project, Sergej cautions that the film is not an autobiography: ‘I shouldn’t be identified one-to-one with the figure of the artist in the film. Although we resemble each other and all of the paintings are mine, I have merely attempted to answer the question “How are paintings made?” in metaphorical terms, without words. What I found interesting in working on this film was to listen intently to Evgeny’s music and try to imagine what he had seen in my paintings, things I was not aware of myself, and then to think up visual motifs to accompany the musical phrases, melodies and rhythms, and string them together to make a theme, like threading beads.’
And now to the film itself: its compositional structure is indivisibly linked to its music, right down to the level of the individual episodes. If one takes the number of all the compositions or mini-tone poems, as the author calls them, one could divide up the whole film into twenty independent, self-contained short films, each of which has its own theme – one of the paintings. All these clips are in turn connected to form a sequence. But they differ wholly in their mood, filmic approach, editing and above all in their artistic message.
The professional filming is highly impressive. Rosmarie explains: ‘The secret is simple – I was doing this for the first time in my life, but with huge interest and love, and Sergej always explained what I had to do, drew me schematic storyboards, angled the spotlights, chose the perspective and arranged objects and sets.’
What is astonishing is the unobtrusive but meticulous planning of each individual shot. There is nothing superfluous; each object is in its place and has a particular and important significance.
One is left with an amazing feeling after watching the film. Everything seems to be simple and straightforward to understand; certain images, particular musical phrases or leitmotifs surface in one’s mind… But after a few days one finds oneself wanting to see the film again, as if one has overlooked something, as if one has not looked long enough at a small detail or not completely understood it. One feels an urge to experience once again this mutual interpenetration and fusion of sound and colour, music and painting.
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