David Claerbout The Pure Necessity

The distance between childhood nostalgia and reality, Artist David Claerbout

The choice to work with The Jungle Book was not accidental. The story is that of the strong and potentially cruel helping the weak, until emancipated and ready to face modern life. Around 1967, the individual did not look anything like the individual of today. The individual was a single brick in the architecture of society, today the individual is that society, millions of them.” David Claerbout

This week I was in the village of Zuoz, where I had the opportunity to check out the treasured Romanesque Chapel of San Bastiaun, to see artist Claerbout’s full-colour 2D animation of the 1967 Disney classic film, The Jungle Book. The artist reshapes the story of a young boy abandoned in the jungle as one in which the noisy, anthropomorphised troupe of dancing and singing animal characters behave as their species would do naturally. None of the narrative thread and comical antics of the original, focuses on the animals with their actual characteristics. The scenes are recognisable but Claerbout captures the animals in a natural state – sleeping on branches, observing one another, etc – becoming a reflection on the distance between sentimental fantasy, childhood nostalgia and reality.

Claerbout’s works often depict some everyday activity but as time passes the viewer is faced with the dilemma of how to process this different reality and the artist’s intention. I’m just a huge fan of this Disney classic and being able to see this in such a beautiful setting in a winter wonderland was truly magical. Its on till March 7th, definitely worth a visit.

The presentation is curated by Ziba Ardalan, Founder, Artistic and Executive Director of Parasol unit.

David Claerbout, The Pure Necessity, 2016. Single-channel projection, 2D animation, stereo sound, 50 min.

Daniela Selva