'Pictures at an Exhibition' was displayed in Gallery One at West Space, Melbourne, in 2013. The exhibition paid homage to the life and oeuvre of the late French filmmaker, time-traveller, writer and artist, Chris Marker, who passed away a year earlier while working at his studio desk on his birth date, aged 91 (b. 29 July 1921 – d. 29 July 2012). 

For its time, the exhibition only skimmed the surface of Schwartz’s deep respect for Marker, leaving him space for a lifetime of further curiosity, contemplation and exploration of Marker’s influence on him. He also echoed only but a handful amongst countless other Marker fans and enthusiasts’ voices, whose creative outputs paid homage to his life and work. Schwartz’s focus was to relay obscure and only occasionally distributed Marker works, in the hope of opening others up to the breadth and depth of his practice through more accessible forms and tangible views. 

By sharing but a glimpse of Marker’s vision through Schwartz’s gaze, he drew upon his own domestic, familiar relationship to Marker, as the gallery’s atmosphere was altered to evoke a more inviting, home-like softness in the space. First, the white gallery walls were painted a teal colour that bore a close resemblance to his share house’s bedroom wall colour, where printed wall decor featured Marker’s presence. The tabletop surface (a prefabricated door) used to present the reading materials on was a similarly teal colour to the walls, and later became his bedroom’s desk surface. Along with altering the room’s colour scheme, a comfy ottoman was brought into the space for visitors to sprawl out and stay a while. There was a gentle ambience to the space, with Arvo Pärt’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ softly echoed on repeat in the background, as the soundtrack to Marker’s 2008 film 'Pictures at an Exhibition' played on repeat.

Artworks developed by Schwartz included the following:

 - one-sheet film posters of the following: Cinétracts (1968); Pictures at an Exhibition (2008); If I Had Four Camels (1966); Three Cheers for the Whale (1972); Le Mystère Koumiko (1965); Sunday in Peking (1956); Statues Also Die (1953); and Letter from Siberia (1958);

- a Guillaume-en-Egypte bootleg cat t-shirt made from extreme lo-res .jpgs found on Google Image (compression due to limited search results available), with images stretched to maximum printable area on both sides;

-  two soft cover bootleg reprints of the English edition of Marker's one-off of fiction novel, The Forthright Spirit (1951). This English translation of the French edition ‘Le Cœur Net’ (1950) was made from the only available source of the text that the artist could access between 2010-13, in the form of a very low quality photocopy of the entire book, found by chance on an obscure blog;

- a single hardcover book translation of the film, Three Cheers for the Whale (1972), which separated text from image, where narration featured as text, and stills were reproduced for each frame of the film.

The following contributions were made by other Marker fans and enthusiasts:

- writer and illustrator, Alexandra Kha, along with his publisher, Tanibis, generously provided his book in homage to Marker, titled ‘L'attrapeur d'images’. The book was reproduced as an English translation, ‘The Image Catcher’, with the translation from French to English by Guillaume Savy; editing in English translation by Aurelia Yueyi Guo; text inserts and design edits by Matthew Greaves; project management and direction by Schwartz. However, the end result would not have been possible without the significant guidance and support from Vaughan Christian Howard, who managed the printing, binding and the resolution of the finished book artefact, as well as many other vital facets of the project.

- a comic-book homage by Viennese architect Max Moswitzer, ‘Ouvroir - A Voyage with Sergei Murasaki’ which translated virtual conversations between Marker and Moswitzer as they worked together in resolving the Second Life world that Moswitzer and computer guru Margarete Jahrmann had designed for Marker, titled Ouvroir;

- and a single A3-sized sheet, double-sided text work by artist Janenne Eaton, titled ‘plus ça change’ (which is loosely translated in English as ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’). The text documents both noise and words from a segment of archival footage from Marker’s essay film, ‘Le fond de l'air est rouge’ (1977) (Eng. A Grin Without a Cat). Eaton translated the haunting sequence of aUS bomber pilot’s commentary while the fleet dropped napalm and fired on people on the ground. The pilots words were recorded in black text, while various squak and static radio noise, as well as sounds of explosions and bullets were recorded in red text. In ‘plus ça change’, there is no spacing between the pilot’s commentary and the abrasive noises of violence.

Documentation images by Dan Miller of Useful Art Services.

Ouvroir: Chris Marker

Chris Marker, celebrated French photographer and film director, invites you on a tour of his work, led by his longtime guide, Monsieur Guillame, an orange cat who pops up to assist you on your travels. This is a part of the Chris Marker exhibition at the Museum fuer Gestaltung Zuerich.