Movies by Michael Blum
Charlie Marx and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie Marx and the Chocolate Factory started as an investigation of the link between politics and chocolate, at the Karl Marx Confectionary Factory in Kiev, Ukraine. Since access to the factory was denied, the project had to be re-considered, re-invented or re-enacted. Mostly made of archival footage and re-enacted performances based on the company's website, the film merges what was left of the initial idea with what has been collected and realized instead. It borrows from the genres of video art, 'Man on the street' interview, direct add...
Wandering Marxwards
A political and poetic wondering/wandering about the relevance and context of re-reading Marx 150 years after the publication of The Communist Manifesto
The Three Failures
A fairy tale about communism, social-democracy, and capitalism. (The sequel to Wandering Marxwards)
Capri in Tangerang (Her Sneakers)
A sequel to My Sneakers - the 2001 video where Blum traveled his Nike sneakers back to Indonesia to figure out where they really came from. This time, it's the artist's daughter's shoes that prompt him to return to Jakarta. While echoing My Sneakers and its investigative drive, Capri unravels as a reflection on time passing and the dialectics of permanence and change. Factories are still producing sneakers, but the world around has completely changed…
Psychics III : Frans Dupont / Rooseum, Gasverksgatan 22, Malmoe
A series of psychic readings of spaces, commissioned by the artist in an attempt at connecting with the past of domestic or exhibition spaces, despite the limitations of rational discourse. The video is not edited, respecting the actual duration of the performance. In this particular case, Frans Dupont is looking at the past but also at the future of Rooseum - Center for contemporary art in Malmoe, which was on the verge of being shut down while Blum was artist-in-residence.