Robert AdantoUSA
Title of Piece: CITY OF MEMORY
Duration: 13m 30s
Short Description
City of Memory explores the ways in which the cataclysmic events in the wake of Hurricane Katrina became imprinted on the memory of visual artists who lived through them. Most Americans view New Orleans in one of two ways- the home of Mardi Gras celebrations, and others see it nostalgically, the French Quarter. This excerpt presents an Alternate Space, one where race, a lack of opportunities, guns, and senseless crime intersect.
Curatorial Note
The video excerpt maps chorography- the sociology of an area, in particular referring to New Orleans which recently saw 10x more homicide than the national average. The art project covered in the film takes a peek into the lives of people who at some point were affected by the areas notorious indulgence to crime involving murder, racism and adverse crime inflicted by illegal possession of guns. In direct and literal sense, is an alternate space dangerous to live; against the civilized conduct of one’s right to live in peace and safety?
Biography
Robert Adanto
A fellow of the Sundance Institute Documentary Program, Robert Adanto is interested in exploring how artists respond to rapid, sometimes catastrophic change. His award-winning films have looked at China’s explosive contemporary art scene (The Rising Tide 2008), the lives and works of Iranian female artists (Pearls on the Ocean Floor 2010), the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the lives of New Orleans-based artists (City of Memory 2014), and radical “4th wave” feminist performance in Brooklyn (The F Word 2015). His most recent project Born Just Now, which explores the art and life of the Serbian artist Marta Jovanovic, received the Dziga Vertov Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Chicago International Arthouse Film Festival and was also named Best Feature Documentary at Arte NonStop Film Festival in Bueno Aires, Argentina. Robert’s films have enjoyed screenings at over 40 international film festivals and have been presented at the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., the National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow, The MFA Boston, LACMA, The Hammer Museum, The Queensland Art Gallery: Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, AU, Changjiang Museum of Contemporary Art in Chongqing, CN, and the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, amongst others. He earned his M.F.A. at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.