State of Concept
Athens

State of Concept, in the framework of the first solo exhibition of Ahmet Öğüt in Greece “Labour after Pay, Love before Work – An Artworkers VIP Lounge”, is happy to announce the screening Workers Leaving the Factory (1995) (36 min duration) by Harun Farocki on the closing days of the exhibition, 22nd & 23rd of September 2023. 

More info about the screening: 

Screening (on loop) 22 – 23.09 

Workers Leaving the Factory, Harun Farocki (1995), 36 min 

Workers Leaving the Factory – such was the title of the first cinema film ever shown in public. For 45 seconds, this still existant sequence depicts workers at the photographic products factory in Lyon owned by the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière hurrying, closely packed, out of the shadows of the factory gates and into the afternoon sun. Only here, in departing, are the workers visible as a social group. But where are they going? To a meeting? To the barricades? Or simply home?

These questions have preoccupied generations of documentary filmmakers. For the space before the factory gates has always been the scene of social conflicts. And furthermore, this sequence has become an icon of the narrative medium in the history of the cinema.

In his documentary essay of the same title, Harun Farocki explores this scene right through the history of film. The result of this effort is a fascinating cinematographic analysis in the medium of cinematography itself, ranging in scope from Chaplin’s Modern Times to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accattone!. Farocki’s film shows that the Lumière brothers’ sequence already carries within itself the germ of a foreseeable social development: the eventual disappearance of this form of industrial labor. – Klaus Gronenborn 

Source: https://www.harunfarocki.de/films/1990s/1995/workers-leaving-the-factory.html

Duration of the exhibition: June 23rd  – September 23rd 2023 

Opening / Screening Hours: Wednesday – Friday 16:30 – 20:30, Saturday 12:00 – 17:00 

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