Murray Guy is proud to present Matthew Buckingham’s fifth solo exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition will consist of two new works, the film installation False Future and the video installation Everything I Need.

False Future, 2007 takes up the story of Louis Le Prince, the little-know inventor who succeeded in developing a working motion picture system at least five years before the Lumière Brothers. Had Le Prince not mysteriously disappeared while traveling from Dijon to Paris by train in 1890 he would most likely be known today as the originator of cinema. False Future speculates on this false-start in the history of filmmaking, focusing on the drives and desires that lie behind the invention and reception of moving images. The title comes from the French verb tense, ‘faux future,’ often employed in history-writing and voice-over to knowingly ‘anticipate’ the actions of historical figures by narrating the past as if it is imminent or yet-to-happen. The author, predicting the actions of people in the past, not only plays the role of clairvoyant but also returns the reader or listener to the present tense of the time-period in question. In the case of Le Prince, the phrase ‘false future’ also refers to a present that never was, to the influence over filmmaking that Le Prince never had.

Echoing descriptions of Le Prince’s workroom, the installation displays a ten-minute film that restages one of the four eight-second long films Le Prince is known to have made. We see a static shot of street- and foot-traffic on the Leeds Bridge in Leeds, England, while a French-speaking voice relates and speculates on the events of Le Prince’s life. The film is subtitled in English.

Everything I Need, 2007 is inspired by an episode in the autobiography of the psychologist and writer on homosexuality Charlotte Wolff (German, 1897–1986), who was exiled from Berlin in 1933. Having lived in Paris but mainly London, Wolff returned to Berlin for the first time in 1978 following an invitation to speak there from the lesbian group L74. The trip prompted Wolff to expand her memoirs into the autobiography Hindsight (published 1980) on her return trip to London. Buckingham’s video was recorded on a passenger plane that was “retired” from service around the time that Wolff made her journey to Berlin and back. One of the 2 projected images of Everything I Need shows the interior of the airplane; long takes exploring architectural and tactile aspects of the cabin interior unfold whilst on the other screen we read Charlotte Wolff’s thoughts reflecting on her voyage to Berlin. She connects the person she once was when she left to the person who returned. These projected “subtitles” caption and label the ambiguous images of the airplane interior, creating a cognitive dissonance or split attention which must be navigated by the viewer.

Over two weekends, on March 28, 29, 30 and April 4, 5, 6,  CREATIVE TIME will be presenting Matthew Buckingham’s Muhheakantuck – Everything Has a Name, 2003, a 40-minute screening aboard a New York Water Taxi navigating the Hudson River. There will be two screenings daily – 7pm and 8 pm. The Water Taxis depart from Pier 45 at Christopher Street The screenings are free but reservations are necessary: events@creativetime.org