Jane and Louise Wilson: Unfolding the Aryan Papers

Exhibiting Research XII

Thursday, 2 July 2015
18.00 – 19.30
Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre
The Courtauld Institute of Art

Artists’ film screening followed by discussion between artists Jane and Louise Wilson and film scholar Erika Balsom

Jane and Louise Wilson came upon a cache of material in the Stanley Kubrick Archive relating to the director’s unrealised Holocaust film The Aryan Papers. Fascinated by this project that never came to be,they combed through Kubrick’s research and sought out the actress he had cast for the lead role, Johanna ter Steege. Unfolding the Aryan Papers combines Kubrick’s research images and original wardrobe stills with footage of ter Steege shot by the artists. It is at once a documentary resurrection of the abandoned film, a portrait of the actress, a response to Kubrick’s working method, and an exploration of the unrepresentable nature of the Holocaust. Kubrick’s research into an event he ultimately felt he could not represent resonates strongly with the Wilsons’ own research-based practice.

“We would love to have seen this film made, but only having the initial fragments to go on makes it incredibly enigmatic. We want to explore this as it is – this enigmatic quality which makes it profoundly cinematic.” – Jane and Louise Wilson

Organised in conjunction with the MA Curating the Art Museum exhibition The Second Hand: Reworked Art Over Time, on view at The Courtauld Gallery, June 18 – July 19 2015. The Second Hand is an exhibition of historical and contemporary works, all of which involve one artist actively engaging with the work of another.