The opening of the multimedia exhibition “Signs of Life: Werner Herzog and the Cinema” took place on Friday, November 20 at the Port’s Ice Chambers Warehouse, in the framework of TIFF. The exhibition is part of the Festival’s parallel events, which complement the retrospective on the work of the multifarious German artist. Present at the event were TIFF president Georges Corraface, TIFF director Despina Mouzaki, Werner Herzog himself, Grazia Paganelli, author of the multimedia monograph “Signs of Life: Werner Herzog and the cinema” and curator of the exhibition by the Italian Cinema Museum in Turin, and Thomas Linaras, editor of the bilingual edition of the monograph.
Werner Herzog gave the audience a tour of the exhibition, which includes pictures and videos covering his entire career. The curator of the Thessaloniki exhibition, Marion Inglessi, noted: “The choice of location for the exhibition was intentional. Werner Herzog’s movies are characterised by his curiosity in all aspects of people, both their magical and their monstrous ones. He presents his characters bluntly, without any polishing. This is the reason why we chose the Ice Chambers Warehouse of the Port and made no effort to polish them – we didn’t even try to hide the cables”. Underlining the idea of travel, which is dominant in Herzog’s work, the exhibition’s organisers used the boxes where the videos and pictures of the exhibition were packed, as furniture. The packaging of a piano was turned into a table, just as the director had done in his film Fitzcarraldo.
The brilliant filmmaker expressed his gratitude to all those who contributed in organising the exhibition. One of them is his younger brother and producer of most of his films, Luki Stipetic, who “safeguarded with dedication all this voluminous archive material”. Commenting on the location of the exhibition, Herzog said: “It would be impossible to find a place more suitable”, adding: “It is hard to understand how much work is behind those pictures and videos. I return to Thessaloniki, a city that has always fascinated me, both through this exhibition and through the films I have made. These pictures remind me of a stage in my life, but at the same time they seem to me somewhat alien as well. Looking at them, I realise how much I have worked for those films”.
The exhibition, organised by TIFF, the Goethe Institute and the Italian Cinema Museum (Turin), will remain open until November 22.
