Michel Auder
Shopping Heads, 1990/2009

Artist
Michel Auder

Title
Shopping Heads

Year of creation
1990/2009

Technology and duration
video (DVD), 1:10 minutes

Year of acquisition
2009

Acquisition of the foundation

For over 40 years, there has hardly been an incident or event in his life that Michel Auder has not captured on camera. The filmmaker takes on different roles: he is a silent partner, an obsessive voyeur, a secret accomplice or a simple observer. His individual, sensitive style has made Michel Auder world famous.

Heads of the Town (which includes Shopping Heads) is reminiscent in parts of Jean-Luc Godard's film Passion. In his close-up and detailed shots, Auder self-referentially negotiates the handling of the work of art and the medium of film. His current works are hardly tied to the authentic-looking documentary style of his video diaries. Michel Auder never saw himself as a documentarian.

The artist Jonas Mekas writes about Auder: “And yes, he is a poet, not a realist. A poet of moods, faces, situations, short encounters and the tragic moments of our miserable civilization, of suffering. And yes, also of human vanity and ridiculousness."

Auder's films are in the Anthology Film Archives, New York and have been shown, among others, in the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Center Pompidou in Paris. In 2008, Auder exhibited his works in exhibitions at the European Kunsthalle in Cologne, at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen and at the Berlin Biennale. In November 2008, the Frenchman won the New Vision Award at the Copenhagen CPH:DOX Film Festival with The Feature. Michel Auder himself takes on the role of the fictional main character and through him reflects on stages in his real life as a filmmaker, junkie or life partner of the Warhol muse Viva and the artist Cindy Sherman. The film, a joint project with director Andrew Neel, was part of the program of the 58th International Film Festival.