Under the banner of ‘film as film’, the absolute cinema of Greek-American Gregory J. Markopoulos (1928–1992) alternates between fixed sequence shots and autonomous photograms. His work is based on portraits of people and places, and partly on adaptations of Hellenic myths. His last epic work, Eniaios (1948–1990, approx. 80 hours), reassembles his earlier films in a new order, combining them with new ones shot for the occasion. Since 2004, the restored work has been screened every four years at Temenos, an open-air utopian projection space in Greece. In Biel, the exhibition focuses on some of the 16mm films used for Eniaios, presented in conjunction with cibachromes and documents from the Temenos archive.
Curation: François Bovier, with the participation of Robert Beavers, cinematographer and co-founder of the Temenos archive.
The exhibition is the result of an ECAL/HES-SO research project. Its continuation can be seen from 7.6.-30.8.2025 at the CIRCUIT Centre d‘art contemporain in Lausanne.
Hulda Zumsteg in Political Portraits, 1969, © Temenos Inc.
Giorgio de Chirico in Political Portraits, 1969 © Temenos Inc.
Gregory J. Markopoulos in «Swain» 1950 © Temenos Inc.