Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

IN THE BELLY OF THE WHALE

Four artists respond to the 1955  stage play written and directed by Orson Welles, that Welles considered his greatest work in the Theatre.

Cartel Gallery
114-116 Amersham Vale (in the courtyard of the Old Police Station)
London SE14

Adam Chodzko / Côme Ciment / Anthea Hamilton / Jacopo Miliani

Curated by Ariella Yedgar and Rosie Cooper

28 May - 16 July 2011

Private View:  27 May 6:30pm -  till late

Wednesday - Saturday 12-4pm.
Late opening Friday 24 June 7-11pm.

Moby Dick inspired a lifelong obsession in Orson Welles.  So much so, that he directed and appeared in at least three different adaptations of the novel: once on stage and twice in film.

Welles's interpretations of Moby Dick included a 1955 play he wrote and directed about a theatre company's rehearsal of the Melville story, which featured newcomers Patrick McGoohan, Joan Plowright and Kenneth Williams, and starred the director himself as Captain Ahab.  It is said that Welles considered the theatre hall to be the belly of the whale, in which the actors are unwittingly trapped - much as, in the novel, the crew are caught on the ship.  Soon after the theatre production finished its run at the Duke of York's Theatre,  Welles shot a film version in two London theatres  that included additional cast members such as Sir Christopher Lee. It has long been presumed lost.  16 years later, Welles made another attempt at his own film version, in which he played all the major parts.  Some of this footage was edited together into a 22-minute short film,  but at this time the film is unavailable for public viewing.

In the Belly of the Whale is a response to Welles's unremitting and ultimately unfinished film project.  It considers the theme of rehearsal and its related notions of incompleteness, version and repetition.  The exhibition features new works by Adam Chodzko, Côme Ciment, Jacopo Miliani, and a recent piece by Anthea Hamilton, along with contextual material.

A rare contact sheet of Brian Brake's photos of  Welle's 1955 London stage production can be seen Here.

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Adam Chodzko has made a film for a damaged projector, set in a theatre, and objects for actors to use in rehearsal.  Côme Ciment has articulated elements from Moby Dick and the exhibition's premise with different gestures that appear throughout the exhibition space.

Anthea Hamilton's airy room divider Untitled (Rope Divider) (2009/2011) is made predominantly of knotted rope - the technique for which was inspired by John Huston's film Moby Dick.  A large metal ring acts as a portal between the real space of the exhibition and a possible space of fiction.

Working with found images of a theatrical origin, Jacopo Miliani imagines a casting for some of the secondary characters in Moby Dick.

In the Belly of the Whale will include  a programme of associated events, to be announced shortly.

Like Welles's play,  this show is itself a rehearsal for a larger event that the curators are developing in parallel.

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About the Artists:

Adam Chodzko
Chodzko works in a variety of media that have included performance, film, drawing and sculpture.  His work is conceptual, and often lyrical and fantastical.  Working directly with the people and places that surround him, Chodzko's art focuses on culture's edges, endings, displacements and disappearances.  He has exhibited extensively, most recently at venues and exhibitions including: Tate St Ives, Cornwall; Museum d'Arte Moderna, Bologna; Athens Foundation, Athens; PS1, New York; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland.  In 2002 he received awards from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, London, and the Foundation for Contemporary Art, New York.

Côme Ciment
Côme Ciment is one of the many identities of artist Olivier Castel, who makes work under a variety of different names, often collaged from those of other artists.  Similarly, his art takes on - and re-imagines - a range of broad cultural references, including literature and art, with a characterisitic lightness of touch and humorous approach.  Previous exhibitions include 'Variety;, London (2011), and 'Ribbons: The Shape of an Exhibition', Auto Italia, London (2010), both solo shows; an intervention entitled 'The Fox is Concentrating, Trying to Make the Exhibition Disappear', for the Zabludowicz Collection, London (2011); 'Tableau Vivnat: A Wandering Retrospective', Prospect New Orleans, (2010); and 'How Large the World is in the Light of the Lamps', Curzon Soho Cinema, London (2008), in collaboration with Kazimierz Jankowski.

Anthea Hamilton
The physicality of bodies and objects are a source of pleasure for Anthea Hamilton.  She combines disparate elements (music, films, images from men's magazines, rope, the silhouette of a woman's leg, a melon, a rubber mask of Bart Simpson, etc.) to uncanny effect in her work, which takes different forms, including installations, mobiles, films and paintings.  Recent solo exhibitions include: 'Anthea Hamilton', IBID Projects, London (2009); 'Spaghetti Hoops', La Salle de bains, Lyon (2009); and Kusntverein Freiburg, Germany (2009).  Recent group exhibitions include: 'Savage Messiah', Rob Tufnell at Sutton Lane, London (2011); 'Newspeak: British Art Now', Saatchi Gallery, London (2010), 'Wunderkammer', me Collectors Room, Berlin (2010); and 'Small Collections', Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham (2009).

Jacopo Miliani
Through his interdisciplinary practice (installations, videos, collages, performances), Jacopo Miliani challenges the role of representation as a mimesis of reality and its placement in contemporary society.  Using the subjectivity of the viewer in relation to mass culture, Jacopo reflects upon image and audience, often using his personal archive of quotations and found images in ambiguous ways to create a work that can only be 'completed' in the audience's mind.  Recent exhibitions include 'Italian Wave', Artissima, Turin (2010); a screening in relation to the Derek Jarman retrospective at the Serpentine Gallery, London (2008).  In 2009, he was granted the Platform Garanti International Residence Programme in Istanbul.  He has also shown work at Villa Romana, Florence; FormContent, London; and has recently contributed to the International Performance Festival at Galeria Vermelho in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

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About The  Cartel Gallery:
Cartel is an independent not-for-profit platform for curators in South East London.  Launched in the summer of 2010, it showcases about six projects a year.  Housed in a black shipping container, Cartel's programme is decided by a flexible consortium of international members.

Given that "The Greatest Film Ever Made" certainly deserves a Deluxe release on it's 70th anniversary, which also happens to be how many years Orson Welles lived on the planet Earth,  I would like to propose my own wish list of extras and improvements that Warner Bros Home Video can make to their upcoming Blu Ray release of Citizen Kane, which  will most likely be released in September.   Since RKO proclaimed September 5, 1941 as Citizen Kane Day, when the film went out at "popular prices" in many theatres across the country,  that would seem to be the obvious day for WB to release their new Citizen Kane Blu Ray disc.

So here are some other suggestions to Warner Home Video for their upcoming release of Citizen Kane:

*  A truly deluxe edition, along the lines of the superb editions Warner Home Video has given us on such classic titles as The Searchers, King Kong, A Star Is Born and Bonnie and Clyde.  This would mean reproductions of the original RKO Citizen Kane pressbook and Souvenir program. Reproductions of the various Citizen Kane posters could also be included, or better yet, offer up a reproduction of the original one-sheet (style B,  please) as WB did with their box sets for The Searchers,  King Kong and Bonnie and Clyde.

* The most obvious major extra to include would be The Complete Citizen Kane, the excellent 1991 BBC documentary that talks about all things relating to the making of Citizen Kane and features interviews with many of the people who worked on the movie who are now no longer with us.  This documentary was hardly seen in the U.S.  and there can be little doubt it would be a far superior extra than the lamentable The Battle Over Citizen Kane documentary, which WB included on the first DVD release of Citizen Kane.

* Reprints of the articles many of the major creative people wrote about Citizen Kane. Besides the many articles Welles himself wrote about the film, there are also many other pieces that could be included, such as articles written by Gregg Toland, Bernard Herrmann,  John Houseman, Linwood Dunn, etc, etc.

* RKO correspondence on the making of Citizen Kane, both to and from Welles. Most of this material is preserved in the Lilly Library and even if only a few choice samples are included, it would make for fascinating reading.

* Audio tracks for some of the radio shows Welles did that satirize movie-making, such as Miss Dilly Say No and the 1939 I Lost My Girlish Laughter, where Welles plays a David O. Selznick-like producer named Sidney Brand who tells a novelist whose book he has brought, "I'll give you sole screenplay credit!"

* Both Time and Life Magazine did numerous articles on Citizen Kane during its production and after it was finally released on May 1, 1941.  Henry Luce was clearly happy to help Welles and his film, as he was often at odds with William Randolph Hearst.   Given the corporate connection between Time-Warner,  why not include a selection of photos and articles on Citizen Kane from the vast Time-Life archives,  such as this piece that appeared in Time in March, 1941.

*  WB should certainly "un-restore" the "News-on-the-March"  sequence which Welles intentionally wanted to have a dirty and scratched look,  as well as all the scenes in the previous digital restoration that removed such “artifacts” as the raindrops on the windows outside of  Mr. Bernstein’s office.

* Instead of  a documentary featuring interviews with current directors talking about how much Citizen Kane “influenced” them,  it would be far more interesting to edit together Orson Welles own comments on the film from the various  interviews he has done over the years.  You could easily get a 30-minute documentary of  Welles talking about Citizen Kane as almost everyone who ever interviewed Welles asked him about the making of  Kane. Obviously,  cost considerations would come into play,  in terms of  getting the rights to some of  Welles's  interview clips and other  material, but given that Citizen Kane is  “The Greatest Film of All Time,” wouldn’t you think WB would give it at least as deluxe a treatment as they are planning to do for  Ben-Hur?

Anything less should be greeted with King Lear-like howls of indignation!