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Office Baroque

Office Baroque is a unique art historical documentary about the creation, in Antwerp, of the work with the same title, in 1977, by the American artist Gordon Matta-Clark, for an exhibition organised by the former I.C.C.. Both argos and M HKA wish to incorporate the film Office Baroque in their collection, and are interested in digitising and restoring the film. But before this digitisation and restoration process can start, some preparatory research is required. PACKED is in the process of undertaking this research in collaboration with argos and M HKA.

First and foremost it needs to be checked who owns what rights over the film, in 2009. Who owns the rights as author, or as producer? What rights do M HKA own as heir of the former I.C.C.? And what rights do the heirs of Gordon Matta-Clark own? Answering such questions is difficult, due to the fact that drawing up contracts for the production of this kind of film was not yet common practice in 1977. In addition, artists like Gordon Matta-Clark often considered the film or photo documentation of the creation process as part of their oeuvre. The actual works of art, such as the intervention in the Antwerp office building, often had only a temporary character. In order to determine the rights holders, we will try to (re)construct the production history of the film. We will do this by, amongst others, interviewing the filmmakers and the exhibition curator and by checking their correspondence with the artist. We will also involve a judicial expert on intellectual property rights in the research.

In addition, a restored copy of Office Baroque is already circulating in the USA today. What is the status of this restored copy? Do argos and M HKA risk doing double and superfluous work by restoring the film again themselves? We try to investigate this in consultation with the American distributor and the heirs of Gordon Matta-Clark.

As soon as this first stage of research is completed – and if the different parties involved come to an agreement on the rights – we will examine how the 16mm film can best be digitised and subsequently restored.

The entire PDF-file can be downloaded here (Language: Dutch)