Provenance and Lot 248
by Amie Siegel, 2013, 40'
CAMERA: Christine A. Maier   SOUND: Gisburg Smialek
EDITING: Amie Siegel   PRODUCER: Studio Amie Siegel

Schermo dell'Arte - Archivio Film
Presented at Schermo dell'arte Film Festival 2014

Provenance explores a symbol of Modernism which has become a hot commodity on today’s market: furniture designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret for the Indian city of Chandigarh. Conceived in the mid-50’s on the wave of postcolonial euphoria, Le Corbusier’s project is emblematic of the failure of modernist socialist utopia. Amie Siegel creates a provenance document from these artifacts; her film re-traces the geographic peregrinations of these pieces of furniture, from the luxurious homes of rich collectors in London, New York and Paris, where they are today, back to the places for which they were originally intended. Provenance slowly reveals the factors which influence and determine the mechanisms which build an object’s value. 
Shown alongside the film is the short Lot 248, which raises other questions on speculation in the art and design market, and documents, with polemic evidence, the auction-sale of the film Provenance. Both videos were recently acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Amie Siegel
American artist ranging from photographs, video, film installations, and feature films for the cinema. Exposed  in the major americans and europeans museum: the MET of New York, the CCA Wattis of San Francisco, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin and the Hayward Gallery in London. Her videos and feature films have been shown widely, including, Cannes, Berlin and New York She has been a fellow of the DAAD Berliner-Künstlerprogramm, Guggenheim Foundation, and is a recipient of the ICA Boston’s 2010 Foster Prize, a 2012 Sundance Institute Film Fund award and the inaugural Forum Expanded Award at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival.

Selected Filmography
2013 Circuit; Winter 2010 The Modernists; Black Moon 2009 My Way 1 and My Way 2 2008 DDR/DDR 2003 Empathy 1999 The Sleepers

amiesiegel.net


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