Dorit Margreiter: 10104 Angelo View Drive

EXHIBITION AUTHOR: Dorit Margreiter
EXHIBITION CURATOR: Jiří Pátek

In her work, Austrian artist Dorit Margreiter (*1967) primarily explores the relationships between film and television in relation to architectural and social perceptions of space. The video installation created at the Moravian Gallery in Brno is a modification of an exhibition that premiered at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien at the turn of the years 2004/2005. It showcases a specific late modernist family house designed by American architect John Lautner, which was presented in many Hollywood films as a "place of evil." Dorit Margreiter approaches this "architectural nightmare" from many angles to challenge the conventions of film representation while presenting new unexpected ways of its use within interactions in architectural space. The artist refers to traditional divisions of architecture, as well as to gender-specific connotations of space and meaning. The title of her film installation is a reference to the address 10104 Angelo View Drive, located in the hills above Los Angeles, where the footage was filmed.
Dorit Margreiter employs documentary film strategies to confront the viewer with a certain fictional quality of this place, combined with Lautner's architecture, which gives the impression of standing outside the laws of physics. Strangely, although all shots were filmed with a static camera, which enhances their objectivity and neutrality, they contain a significant amount of mystery. This is due to the illogicality that emanates from this architecture, as it combines structural elements such as glass walls, automatically movable coverings, etc., with various technological advancements. Unusual moments, such as water flowing on or behind glass surfaces that suddenly comes to a halt, or a television emerging from a concrete block that simultaneously serves as a table, all challenge the objectivity of the record. Moreover, the film footage is interspersed with short film sequences realized in Lautner's architecture by the obscure artistic group Toxic Titties, again aiming to blur the boundaries between documentary and feature film.
Dorit Margreiter has transformed the exhibition space of the camera into a "black box," a place outside of time and space, where production intertwines with reproduction. In one part of this space-non-space, a 16mm film is projected onto a floating transparent screen while a spotlight illuminates a plywood model, an imitation of a concrete table with a protruding television, which we can see (in the original) in the film. The second part, separated by panels that shade the film projection, is filled with large-format photographs, images which we also have the opportunity to see in the film. Compared to a classic screening, visitors to Dorit Margreiter's exhibition experience some sort of inverted film scenario, where production and reproduction intertwine, woven into a complex web of relationships. In other words, the viewer is confronted with permanently shifting levels of representation, raising questions about the reach of media and the production of various schemes and templates that are tied to the existence of media today.

Accompanying Program for the Exhibition:
The family house situated in the hills of Los Angeles, with the address 10104 Angelo View Drive, served as the interior for the filming of several Hollywood movies, the most famous of which are Charlie's Angels, The Big Lebowski, Playing God (sometimes translated as Hands of Blood), and the Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. As part of the accompanying program for the exhibition, we will present them in the lecture hall of the Museum of Decorative Arts, Husova 14.

Wednesday, September 13 at 6:00 PM
Charlie's Angels
USA / Germany, 2000, 98 min
director: Joseph McGinty Nichol, starring: Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Bill Murray, Sam Rockwell, Kelly Lynch, and others
The head of a dynamic hi-tech company, Knox Technologies, is professionally kidnapped right from his office. The company's million-dollar profits, Mr. Knox himself, and, as it quickly becomes apparent, thousands of innocent people are at stake. What ruthless villain is behind the kidnapping? What does he really want? And how to catch him? Three beautiful top agents, Natalie, Dylan, and Alex, who work for Mr. Charlie's private detective agency, must find answers to these three questions. Each girl is quite different, but they all have one thing in common - intelligence and sex appeal. Both are employed with the same charm and confidence as Asian martial arts, hand and heavy firearms, and the most advanced espionage techniques.

Wednesday, October 18 at 6:00 PM
Diamonds Are Forever
USA/United Kingdom, 1971, 115 min
director: Guy Hamilton, starring: Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Bruce Cabot, and others
A strange situation arises in the diamond market. Bond has no choice but to infiltrate a group of diamond smugglers in the Netherlands to get close to two men. However, meeting them has been fatal for anyone up till now. In the Republic of South Africa, a dentist who bought stolen diamonds directly from the miners was killed, but the chain of murders does not end there. The stunned Agent 007 also finds himself in a coffin because of them. The killers immediately send him to the furnace in the crematorium. Who do they work for?



We will present more films shot in the locations of 10104 Angelo View Drive throughout November, with dates to be specified in due time.