Johan Grimonprez

Johan Grimonprez (Belgium, 1962) studied at the School of Visual Arts and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York. Grimonprez's work dances on the borders of practice and theory, art and cinema, documentary and fiction, demanding a double take on the part of the viewer. Informed by an archaeology of present-day media, his work seeks out the tension between the intimate and the bigger picture of globalization. It questions our contemporary sublime, framed by a fear industry that has infected political and social dialogue. By suggesting new narratives through which to tell a story, his work emphasises a multiplicity of histories and realities. Grimonprez achieved international acclaim with his film essay, dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. With its premiere at Centre Pompidou in Paris, France and Documenta X in 1997, it eerily foreshadowed the events of September 11th. The film tells the story of airplane hijackings since the 1970s and how these changed the course of news reporting. Grimonprez's work is included in numerous international collections such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; the Kanazawa Art Museum, Japan; the National Gallery, Berlin, Germany; and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark. His curatorial projects have been hosted at major museums worldwide such as the Whitney Museum in New York; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in California; The Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Germany; and the Tate Modern in London, England. His films have been included in prestigious film festivals around the globe. In 2016, Grimonprez's most recent feature length film, Shadow World, won Best Documentary Feature Film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland and at the 61st International Film Festival of Valladolid, Spain. Grimonprez divides his time between Belgium and New York and is a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts (New York). For more information, please visit www.johangrimonprez.be