‘6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective’ by Jan Dibbets screened in Barcelona
Tue, Dec 10 2019
Production of '6 Hours of Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' (2009) by Jan Dibbets. Photo: Paloma Polo / SKOR.
The film was produced in 2009 for ‘Portscapes’, the year-long programme producing ten new commissions in and around the Port of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, curated by Latitudes.
Gerry Schum's 1969 'Land Art' series of films screened on German public TV.
Jan Dibbets’ (1941) film was ‘Portscapes’ inaugural project and was filmed on February 8, 2009. Originally filmed 40 years earlier, in February 1969, in black and white and in 16 mm, it was titled ‘12 Hours Tide Object...’. The film was originally presented in 1969 as part of Gerry Schum's seminal 'Land Art' series of artists' films screened that same year on German public TV (this programme was included in Latitudes-curated touring film programme ‘A Stake in the Mud, A Hole in the Reel. Land Art’s Expanded Field 1968–2008’ which began at the Museo Tamayo in April 2008.)
The film presents the drawing of an isosceles trapezoid in the sand using a bulldozer – the shape consequently appears as a rectangle in the resultant film due to the angle of perspective. The new 2009 realisation was filmed 40 years later to the month on the beach of the Maasvlakte, an area that was soon after forever transformed with the construction of Maasvlakte 2 – a land reclamation project, realised between 2008 and 2013, that extended Europe's largest seaport and industrial area by 2,000 hectares.
The resulting 8 minute-long film was premiered at the FutureLand Information Centre of the Port of Rotterdam in June 2009 and during Latitudes’ participation in the New York festival NO SOUL FOR SALE – A Festival of Independents (24–28 June 2009).
Dibbets’ film presented as part of Latitudes’ participation in the festival NO SOUL FOR SALE – A Festival of Independents, New York, 24–28 June 2009. Photo: Latitudes.
Projection of Dibbets' 1969 film as part of the itinerant film programme ‘A Stake in the Mud, A Hole in the Reel. Land Art’s Expanded Field 1968–2008’ on July 11, 2008, at the barn Hongersdijk Farmstead, Wilhelminapolder, Zeeland, The Netherlands, a programme hosted by SKOR (Foundation Art and Public Space, Amsterdam). Photo: Latitudes.
‘6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective’ was produced in collaboration with SKOR | Foundation Art and Public Space (1999–2012), an organisation which initiated, curated and developed art projects in relation to the public domain that no longer exists, realising over a thousand projects in public space in the Netherlands for over a decade. Portscapes was curated by Latitudes, culminating in a display of the projects at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam in 2010.
→ RELATED CONTENT:
- Portscapes commissions
- Portscapes exhibition at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen
- Making of '6 Hours of Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' (2009) by Jan Dibbets – part 1 here.
- Making of '6 Hours of Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' (2009) by Jan Dibbets – part 2 here.
