Ahoy - Mac's Web Log

Hi Mac,

You dont know me but I was inspired by your blog, particularly the page on your visit to France in 1968, to make a film about it! Details are below, thought it was right to let you know! Get in touch if you are in London when the exhibition is on, it would be great if you could see it.
All the best and thanks for the inspiration, Paul Rooney.

Paul Rooney
More than One Life

Private view Sunday 20 April 12–5pm
23 April – 15 June 2008, Wednesday–Sunday 12–6pm
 
Matt’s Gallery
42–44 Copperfield Road, London E3 4RR
www.mattsgallery.org

For his first exhibition at Matt’s Gallery, and first solo exhibition in London, Paul Rooney will present two newly commissioned works. These works approach the subject of historical memory, how history only properly exists if it is actively recalled in the present, but also how flawed that recollection can be. The works ultimately reveal the comedy and melancholy involved in attempting to represent the past in language or art.

More than One Life comprises a new 27 minute film shot on 16mm, La Décision Doypak (2008), co-commissioned by Matt’s Gallery and Loughborough University’s Radar programme; and a further work, a new published work entitled Failing That (2008) with images and text written by the artist, which is free to visitors throughout the exhibition.

There will be timed screenings of La Décision Doypak on the hour and at half past the hour, from midday until 6pm, Wednesday to Sunday (no booking required).

Both works take politically charged historical moments as starting points and involve real events in their fictional construction. La Décision Doypak is inspired by a real web memoir by retired Australian Mackenzie J Gregory, who remembers walking the night-time streets of Paris during the events of May 1968. Failing That uses a moment from an actual documentary about Chile from the mid-eighties, in which an adolescent boy gives a public speech after the death of his father Manuel Guerrero, who had been killed by the military junta. It is partly because of this connection with real life and real events, events that involve revolutionary turmoil or profound injustice, that the imaginative confabulation and formal artifice of the works themselves is thrown into relief, underlining the pathos and absurdity of our attempts to do justice to the past.

La Décision Doypak will be shown at Loughborough University 12–26 May 2008.

Paul,

Thank you for your mail, you have me speechless, using my piece on Paris during the 1968 Student Riots as your inspiration for your film, at the age of 86 I have experienced many interesting moments in my life, but I must admit my visit to Paris at that time in French history was momentous, and is still vividly carved into my memory bank, the burning of Police cars and the mood of the Students quite frightening.

I went off to Lyon to meet with the owner of the Doypack patent, he took me off for a sumptuous lunch, our table even graced with an Australian flag, I am afraid all to no avail, my judgement at the time, was that Australia was not ready for such a sophisticated packaging medium, and to his chagrin, I declined to go on with W R Grace taking up his Doypack. In hindsight it turned out to be the right choice, it was about another 10 years before the Australian packaging industry was ready to embrace such a pack as Doypack.

Forgive my rabbiting on, but you certainly have rung my memory bell, long and hard.

Wishing you every success with your exhibition, what would be the possibility of getting a copy of your 16mm film La Decision Dypack, and what would costs be like please?

Best regards.
Mac.

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