Forte!

Continuing the consistent theme of Lewis’ research into the interrelationships between painting, the picturesque and cinema, ‘Forte!’ inducts the viewer into a mode of spectatorship characterised as ‘looking’ rather than ‘watching’ - attentive to the image in itself rather than as a simple vehicle for plot development. Lewis’ works explore what he has described as "the ‘bits’ of cinema"; in ‘Forte!’ it is the establishing shot, or more evocatively the opening sequence. Commissioned by Forte di Bard, Italy, the work plays on the double meaning in the title – both a reference to the work’s explicit subject matter (the 17th Century Alpine Fortress) and the implicit effect at which the motion picture camera excels – the mobile, and in this case ‘disembodied’ aerial, view. Across a landscape charged with the status of a national border yet one partially hidden beneath snow, the helicopter mounted camera leads the viewer into a gripping but inconclusive narrative. The work’s similarity to the opening of Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ is striking and plays some part in the work’s ability to draw in and hold the attention. In doing so, the work presents the viewer with a cinematic trope as a subject in itself, making something that would otherwise be understood as a neutral or transparent technical process something strange, complex and meaningful in its own right.

Originally exhibited at Forte di Bard, the work has subsequently been screened at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2011) and in group exhibitions ‘Big Picture’ at K21 Dusseldorf (2011), ‘MärklinWorld’, KAdE Amersfoort, Netherlands (2012), ‘The View from Above’, "Centre Pompidou-Metz (2013). ‘Forte!’ has also been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Winterthaur, Switzerland (2011), Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario (2012), and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2013).

• http://www.marklewisstudio.com/films2/Fo...
• http://www.marklewisstudio.com/stills/Fo...
• http://www.fortedibard.it/en/news/space-...