Hito Steyerl, Ben Rivers, Wang Bing: Exploring Film and Visual Art at Eye Filmmuseum

This exhibition at Eye Filmmuseum showcased works by the first three winners of the Eye Art & Film Prize: Hito Steyerl, Ben Rivers, and Wang Bing. Each artist demonstrates a socially engaged approach at the intersection of film and visual art, exploring contemporary societal changes and the impact of digital technology through their distinct practices.

The Eye Filmmuseum presented an exhibition celebrating the first three laureates of the Eye Art & Film Prize: Hito Steyerl, Ben Rivers, and Wang Bing. This annual award, launched in 2015 by Eye and the Paddy and Joan Leigh Fermor Arts Fund, champions artists and filmmakers making significant contributions to the interdisciplinary field where film and visual art converge. The featured artists share a distinctive socially engaged perspective in their practices, each examining critical aspects of contemporary society through their unique cinematic and artistic lenses. Hito Steyerl, a leading German video artist, is celebrated for her profound and often humorous works that explore the boundaries between film and visual art, critically examining the role of media in a globalized era and the rapid dissemination of images and knowledge enabled by digital technology. Her impactful installations challenge conventional representations of reality, asserting that images actively intervene in our world. British artist Ben Rivers delves into the fascinating interface between documentary and fiction, crafting subtle narratives about individuals and isolated communities living outside the mainstream, often shooting on celluloid and revealing traces of utopian worlds within their unique developments. Concurrently, Chinese filmmaker and visual artist Wang Bing focuses his expansive, socially engaged work on the profound changes impacting Chinese society. Known for his monumental films, which can span up to 15 hours and feature strikingly long takes, Wang's uncompromising approach questions official historical narratives by revealing the human effects of major societal upheavals, often working independently with digital cameras and natural light.