The film is the museum: Ken Jacobs, Gus Van Sant, Mark Lewis, and Pierre Perrault

Abstract

In the last twenty years, the question of the relationship between cinema and the museum has been raised in multiple theoretical and practical contexts. The purpose of this text is in a sense to reverse the way in which the question has been posed by shifting the conversation from the film as object for the museum to that of the film as museum. Taking as a starting point the diversity inherent in institutional museums as well as the constant redefinition of the project which those institutions nonetheless have in common, this essay develops the hypothesis of a delocalisation (accompanied by a reinvention) of most of the functions traditionally associated with the museum. Those functions can now happen elsewhere, as for instance in (and via) a film which can be transformed into an exhibition site or an act of restauration. Ultimately, that which is referred to as ‘curatorial gesture’ encompasses the entirety or part of a necessarily polymorphous curatorial project which is essentially redefined through film.