Sergio Belinchón.

Adiós Amigo

Date: 2011
Length: 15:53 min.
Format: 16:9
Specifications: Colour, Sound, Single Channel
Courtesy Invaliden1 Galerie, Berlin

In Überarbeitung amerikanischer Westernfilmszenarien verschiebt Sergio Belinchón den Handlungsplatz seiner Arbeit in das spanische Huesca, der Bühne zahlreicher Italowestern der 60er und 70er Jahre. Die Provinz wird zum europäischen Texas überhöht und ist Kulisse eines einsamen Cowboys auf der stetigen Suche nach dem gelobten Land. Reduzierte Gitarrenklänge leiten verschiedene Momentaufnahmen einer ruinösen Stadt ein. Als gängiges Zeichen des Westerngenres unterbricht ein Tumbleweed die ausgedörrte, trostlose Einöde: Ein Willkommensgruß an den Protagonisten. Von ruhigen melodischen Pfeifenklängen begleitet, reitet der schwarz gekleidete Cowboy auf seinem Pferd durch die Ruinen und verlässt schließlich unter tosendem Galopp die zerstörte Stadt. Der Titel der Arbeit, „Adiós Amigo“, wird nun erstmals in charakteristischer Western-Schriftart enthüllt. Unter verschiedenen Weitwinkel- und Detailaufnahmen erkunden Reiter und Pferd die spanische Kulisse mit ihrer weitläufigen Landschaft und dem steinigen Gebirge. Neben der geographischen Verschiebung von Amerika nach Europa lässt sich auch eine zeitliche Bewegung erkennen. Das Gespann zieht an Strommasten vorbei und wird von Flugzeugen überrascht. Unter einer Brücke aus Beton hält der Cowboy fasziniert inne und reitet schließlich über den Asphalt der Landstraße davon. Die Transformation des Vergangenen in die Gegenwart geht einher mit der nicht enden wollenden Suche nach dem gelobten Land.

Sabrina Mayer
 

Interview:

► 1. Your work has been chosen among over 2000 festival entries to participate in VIDEONALE.14. In which context do you prefer to present your work, festival/cinema context or exhibition? And what kind of difference does the respective mode of presentation mean for you / your work?

Normally I present my work in an exhibition contest, I work as an artist with photography and video/film. In this case, as in some other projects, I like to present it also in a cinema context. Nowadays, both contexts are often mixed, so one can see more cinema-like works in galleries and museums and more "artistic" works in theaters. What is better for me of the cinema context is the predisposition of the audience to attend for longer time a piece, and that is good for the work, but the piece has to fit some parameters that the gallery does not demand. The atmosphere is completely different in a museum or in a cinema.

► 2. Art can be seen as a mirror that registers and reflects life or as a tool that transforms it. Is there a particular theme, concept or problem your art addresses the most?

I attend different subjects in my work, but mainly I focus on how we people live, what is our surrounding and how that interferes in our lives or how we interfere in the landscape. Through a vision of the modern city, or the human remains in the landscape I try to talk about these things. Also, the world of appearances, the reality and artificiality of places is something I am very interested in, like in the work I present here, a video shot in Spain, where in the 60's were shot so many spaghetti westerns, where the locations were representing the american west. Spain was America because of a camera. I love this idea.  Also, the locations have been transformed since then until nowadays, and some nature landscapes are crossed today by highways, so I also present the subject of the human transformation of the landscape.

► 3. In which way is the video medium an excellent possibility to express your intended subjects, especially in contrast to other media you use? Or do you work exclusively with video?

I work with video and photography. Both are mediums very close to each other. In the end, video/film is an accumulation of photographs. Each medium provides advantages and limitations, and one confronts each of them differently. With a photo I can tell a whole story, but then I won't have the movement and the time that film provides. Also, I often use found footage from private super 8 filming , where I think there is an aspect of veracity and everyday reality that the photography does not have, because of filming issues, like time and movement.

► 4. If you have the chance to ask the visitors of the VIDEONALE.14 exhibition questions about your own work, what would be your question?

Mmmmm. Difficult one. I think I would not ask anything. I try to tell a story with my work, and that story can be more or less difficult to understand, but always there are different meanings and reactions to the same piece of work, depending on what I tell, how I tell it and the spectator's background. There is always a point of view, different from mine, very valid and very interesting. So in the end is better to wait and hear the comments of the audience without asking anything specific.