EXHIBITION DESIGN

In her first Budapest exhibition, Eli Cortiñas, a Berlin-based artist of Spanish origin, presented video works that are, in effect, quotations, as they consists exclusively of found footage that has been appropriated and recycled. In recent decades, the concept of found footage, just as appropriation art, has developed into a trend of its own in film and visual art. In this spirit, Cortiñas’s image sequences that originate from the works of such iconic film directors as François Truffaut, Luis Buñuel and John Cassavetes – and thus these ‘60s and ‘70s feature films – are given new meaning through the dissection process and the subsequent re-composition and re-contextualization.

Cortiñas doesn’t appear to be interested in the relationship of film or cinema to reality, nor does she seek the innovation of visual representation. Instead, by deconstructing the narrative of the image sequences that function as quotations – through strict formal analysis – she recreates the visual composition as a dreamlike atmosphere. The artist’s works – her unique, often repetitive usage of image and sound – outline gender and social roles/relations, as well as social stereotypes. Thus, in helping viewers re-experience familiar patterns, she creates artwork that has the capacity to snatch them out of reality.  

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"I loved that you chose that picture from Dial M, it is my favorite one. I like the poster a lot, it looks very dynamic and interesting... I really like the result."
Eli Cortiñas