The Quay Brothers have been working on their third feature film for several years, taking their cue from Bruno Schulz’s novel ‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’ (1937). In this installation they introduced a number of motifs, images and objects from this project. A man travels to visit his father at a sanatorium. This sanatorium is a floating world halfway between sleep and wakefulness, where time cannot be measured by clocks. Within the sanatorium’s labyrinthine limbo of uncertainty, objects and events roam with a force all their own.
The IFFR installation invited the viewer to explore the mythical-poetic world of Bruno Schulz. In a first section, ‘Apparitions on Glass’, an array of binoculars and objects in vitrines prepared the viewer for the second section, where a miniature sanatorium emerged from a pool, as if from the underworld.
Quay Brothers
Stephen and Timothy Quay (USA, 1947) have been building on a dark, enigmatic oeuvre since the 1970s. Their work encompasses stop-motion films, but also includes drawings, set designs and diorama boxes.