JEF CORNELIS - DE LANGSTE DAG

For Jef Cornelis (1941), who directed films for Belgian television between 1964 and 1998, it is important that his work should add something extra to the ‘television experience’. Cornelis’s work is primarily a dissection of television itself. With over 6 hours of live television broadcast on June 21st 1986, the programme De Langste Dag (The Longest Day) by the BRT network was one of the main elements in Initiatief ’86, an amalgam of exhibitions simultaneously unfolding over several locations in the city of Ghent. The footage moves from art installations, museums, private homes and television studios as artists, curators, politicians and members of the public consider questions such as: "Can television do what art does?", "Can the two genres support one another?". The programme refuses to catalogue art, or to offer explanations or guidelines, but creates an open communication model geared towards reflection and discussion, intervention and reaction.

De Langste Dag
1986, 375’48", colour, English, Dutch, Italian and French spoken, English subtitles.

Related events

• OPEN ARCHIVE #2 - REFLECTIONS ON CONTEMPORARY ART, MEDIA CULTURE AND ARCHIVING
• Alexander Kluge and Jef Cornelis in discussion with Paul Willemsen
• Jef Cornelis TV Works: M Leuven
• Jef Cornelis TV Works: Cinema Zuid
• Jef Cornelis TV works: Extra City / Kunsthal Antwerpen
• Lectures by Koen Brams and Dirk Pültau on the work of Jef Cornelis

This event is part of EXTRA LENGTH - SCREENINGS