Love at the Frankfurt Autoshow

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Note that seating is limited and will be available on a first-come-first-served basis starting at 6:00pm.
Free tickets will be available at IFC on the day of the show only.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019
7pm–10pm
Than Hussein Clark: Love at the Frankfurt Autoshow, 2017

Join Art in General and artist Than Hussein Clark at NYC art house cinema IFC Center for a free screening of Clark’s feature-length film, Love at the Frankfurt Autoshow. This is the film’s first-ever screening in New York and is presented as part of Art in General’s current exhibition School of Pain which investigates economies of desireand is curated by Michal Novotný.

Love at the Frankfurt Autoshow (2017) draws on the languages of melodrama, police thriller, and film noir, detailing the machinations of a famous industrial family whose launch of a new self driving car has been has been sabotaged by a mysterious professor and his accomplice. An embodiment of the artist’s distinct aesthetic, each character is marked by their colorblocked costumes as much as their exaggerated speech and mood.

The film extends Clark’s interest in what Rainer Werner Fassbinder terms “the exploitability of feelings” and the antagonistic dynamics between theatricality and objecthood into cinematic space. In a thoughtful and expansive review of the film published in Frieze magazine, art critic Martin Hargreaves observes that “Clark’s focus is on the machinations of relationships and the economic exchange of desire, here staged through the slippery ambivalence and duplicity of self conscious theatricality and high camp.”

Love at the Frankfurt Autoshow originally premiered as part of the exhibition Recognition at VI, VII Gallery Oslo and features a cast of actors drawn from Clark’s theatrical ensemble, The Director’s Theatre Writer’s Theatre. Starring: Henry Ashton, Markus Bernhard Börger, Than Hussein Clark, Ruth Connick, Catherine Luedtke, Josef Mohamed, Luis Odriozola, Laura Schuller, Alina Weber. Read more about the film and Than Hussein Clark’s larger body of work in Hargreaves’ full May 2018 review in Frieze Magazine.

Image: Than Hussein Clark: Love at the Frankfurt Autoshow (film still), Courtesy VI, VII, Oslo.


Than Hussein Clark (born 1981 in New Hampshire, USA, lives in London and Hamburg) works as an independent artist as well as being a member of the editorial board of the London-based Montez Press, co-established by the artist in 2012, which publishes texts “against current critical modalities and theoretical dogmas which inform the workings of contemporary knowledge economy.” After studying acting in New York and Los Angeles, he first completed a degree in art history in Edinburgh and London, after which he studied art at Goldsmiths College in London and University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. He is represented by Mathew Gallery in New York, VI, VII in Oslo, Galerie Karin Guenther in Hamburg and Galerie Crèvecoeur in Paris.


General Support of Art in General is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; New York State Council on the Arts with support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; National Endowment for the Arts; Greenwich Collection, Ltd.; Cowles Charitable Trust; The Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors; and by individuals. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

The International Collaborations Program is supported by the Trust for Mutual Understanding and the Milton and Sally Avery Foundation. Support is also provided by Art in General’s Commissioners’ Circle.

Special Project Support provided by Center For Contemporary Art Futura, Czech Center in New York and Foundation for Contemporary Arts Prague.

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.