Artists Space

Anja Kirschner and David Panos:
The Last Days of Jack Sheppard

Screening
November 7, 2012, 7pm

Anja Kirschner and David Panos’ third film The Last Days of Jack Sheppard (2009, dur: 56 min) follows on from their previous films in taking London as both location and subject. In this instance the work draws on historical narrative to reflect on the present; the film is based on the inferred prison encounters between the 18th century criminal Jack Sheppard and Daniel Defoe, ghostwriter of Sheppard’s “autobiography.” Set in the wake of the South Sea Bubble of 1720, Britain’s first financial crisis, the film is a critical costume drama constructed from a patchwork of historical, literary, and popular sources. It traces the connections between representation, speculation and the discourses of high and low culture that emerged in the early 18th century, and remain resonant today.

A hand reaches toward the black-gloved hand of a person dressed in a black mask and jester-style costume, complete with a black and white pattern and a ruff around the neck.
Still from The Last Days of Jack Sheppard (2009). [A hand reaches toward the black-gloved hand of a person dressed in a black mask and jester-style costume, complete with a black and white pattern and a ruff around the neck.]

Artists Space : Books & Talks
55 Walker Street

$5 Entrance Donation
Members Free
Limited capacity, entrance on a first come, first served basis

As an introduction to the film, writer and lawyer Sandra Sherman will give a presentation on the relationship between finance and fictionality in the early 18th Century, with particular focus on the life and work of Daniel Defoe.

Anja Kirschner (1977, Munich, Germany) and David Panos (1971, Athens, Greece) live and work in London, UK. They were the winners of the Jarman Award 2011. Recent solo exhibitions include Ultimate Substance, Secession, Vienna (2012); Living Truthfully Under Imaginary Circumstances, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2012); The Projecting Stage, castillo/corrales, Paris (2011); and The Empty Plan, Kunsthall Oslo (2011). Their work was also included in the Liverpool Biennial (2012) and the British Art Show 7 (2010/2011).

Sandra Sherman has been both an attorney in the US Department of Energy, and professor in 18th Century British literature and culture at University of Arkansas and Georgia State University. Her books include Finance and Fictionality in the Early Eighteenth Century: Accounting for Defoe (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Imagining Poverty: Quantification and the Decline of Paternalism (Ohio State University Press, 2001), and Inventing the Modern Cookbook (Greenwood, 2010).

Two men in powdered wigs and colonial dress, surrounded by pieces of paper fluttering in the air and on the ground.
Still from The Last Days of Jack Sheppard (2009). [Two men in powdered wigs and colonial dress, surrounded by pieces of paper fluttering in the air and on the ground.]
A animated cartoon in tones of black, blue, and grey depicting a silhouette of a prisoner with a chain on his leg and hands in the air, facing a large door with multiple locks.
Still from The Last Days of Jack Sheppard (2009). [A animated cartoon in tones of black, blue, and grey depicting a silhouette of a prisoner with a chain on his leg and hands in the air, facing a large door with multiple locks.]
A white bust with a plaque reading "DEFOE" below it. Slightly offset and partially in shadow is a man seen in profile, dressed identically to the bust with a powdered wig.
Still from The Last Days of Jack Sheppard (2009). [A white bust with a plaque reading "DEFOE" below it. Slightly offset and partially in shadow is a man seen in profile, dressed identically to the bust with a powdered wig.]