Steven Cranczt

Cranczt's intimate series of films document false dialogues that never occurred between ex-lovers in a fictional suburb of Berlin in a version of 1984. Cranczt’s work reputedly makes most sense when the viewer is absent and disinterested. The artist himself claims (whilst smoking a cigarette nonchalantly and looking at me sideways) that his films are not made to be watched, but rather 'elegantly ignored and mildly disliked'.

In the video ‘Collapsing Lung’, currently showing at the Bilbao Guggenheim, a man and a woman coalesce in a lazy bedroom scene. The drawn-out dialogue of the two long-standing protagonists Bruno and Alma is achingly poignant and sheds a sickly light on our own deepest fears:

Bruno (smoking): ‘I have a pain in my lung.’

Alma (holding a clarinet, naked): ‘Do you want me to kiss it better?’

Bruno:‘My lung?’

Alma: ‘Yes.’

Bruno: ‘I don’t think…’

Alma: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.’

(long pause, Alma puts clarinet down and applies some lipstick. Bruno extinguishes cigarette and turns over in bed.)

Bruno: 'I'm leaving you.'

Alma: 'Fine. I've been seeing someone else anyway. He's Swiss.'

(another long pause)

Bruno: 'You always did like the Swiss.'

Alma: (slowly and deliberately) 'Yes. The Swiss. I do like the Swiss.'

museum of modern art