Actress Tilda Swinton's displays her art, recollections, personal items and more in a revealing exhibition at the Onassis Ready in Athens which is closely linked to eight key figures in her life from the world's of film and fashion.
Athens is hosting for the first time a major show dedicated to Tilda Swinton, a remarkable artist and performer who has repeatedly captivated us with her film performances.
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In the exhibition ‘Ongoing’, she presents personal belongings, photographs and film clips to illustrate her illustrious career.
The items portray some of the key creative collaborations and friendships she has forged and continues to nurture with eight leading figures from cinema and fashion over the past forty years: Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, Jim Jarmusch, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Tim Walker, Joanna Hogg, Olivier Saillard and Derek Jarman.
The exhibition is a collaboration between the Onassis Stegi and Amsterdam’s Eye Filmmuseum, where it was first shown.
At its inauguaration, Swinton spoke about memory, the way she works and what's she's learnt so far from life:
"I realised that my task – or rather the opportunity I was given, coming from the era I do – is to bear witness to a different way of working," said Swinton. "I started out working collectively, with a group of artists – not only the director Derek Jarman, though first of all with him – who were operating in a spirit of co-creation, where the process came before the finished product. And so I had the chance to talk about that, to share this model and to recognise that, in fact, it is no longer really available to younger artists."
"What seems to happen, is that you are a young, emerging artist; you have released your first album, your first collection, your first film, your first book. You have got there through a network – a network of friendship, a family framework, the network of your university, your art school, your college, whatever it may be. And then you are encouraged, sometimes subtly, sometimes much less so, by the record company, or the gallerist, or the film studio, to strike out on your own, to cut yourself off," added Swinton.
"Now it becomes important for you to promote yourself as a marketable product. And so I thought that, with my exhibition at the Eye Filmmuseum, I might perhaps offer this as a way of being useful: a portrait of a different way of working, one that happens to correspond very precisely to my own path." said Swinton.
Memories and more
The celebrated actor shares with visitors to the exhibition the fruitful moments and collaborations she has experienced since the very start of her journey, from meeting Derek Jarman and appearing in seven of his feature films, to her most recent encounters with Pedro Almodóvar.
Swinton never ceases to stress that every creative project is the fruit of collective effort. She invites us to consider that the making of a work of art is the outcome of an ongoing conversation, a fertile exchange nurtured by trust, in which roles blur and ideas evolve collectively.
In this sense, the exhibition is not a retrospective but an encounter and celebration of her creative fellow travellers, as well as a gesture of faith in the future, a kind of navigational chart for today’s individualistic landscape. It stands as proof that art is an act of profound companionship. At its next stops, the exhibition is expected to be enriched with new material:
"I never chase a role. I am interested in people. And very often I find myself at the kitchen table, planning a project with my friends. The first thing we look at is what I might do in it. And sometimes there is no role for me, so I do nothing. And sometimes there is," said Swinton. "All of these people are people who want to be part of the conversation. They each have a unique perspective. But their unique perspective depends on the dialogue they have with their collaborators."
"Derek Jarman used to say, “Get ready to go on set as if you were going to a party.” And that really was how it felt. And as we all know, a good party is not one where you want the host to be solely responsible for the energy in the room," said Swinton. "You do not want a bunch of guests standing around, waiting for the host to tell them how to have a good time. A good party is something you share: the energy is shared by everyone, someone puts on the music, someone serves the drinks, someone brings the food. And that sense of shared responsibility is not even about authorship of the work. I mean, ultimately it is about authorship. But in practice, it is about responsibility."
Crucial contributions
Director Luca Guadagnino has created a new, highly personal portrait of her in the form of a short film and a sculpture.
With fresh editing and soundtrack, and by reworking the images, Jim Jarmusch has transformed existing footage from his surreal zombie film, The Dead Don’t Die (2019), into a new installation.
Photographer Tim Walker visited Swinton at her family home for a series of photographs focusing on Swinton's relationship with her ancestors and the continuity of place.
Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul has devised a compelling, contemplative installation. It's a personal two-channel work, filmed in Swinton's birthplace of Kimmerghame in Scotland, STilda’s birthplace. that delves into themes they have been exploring together for years, such as the liminal states between wakefulness, creation and sleep,
Pedro Almodóvar presents the short film The Human Voice (2020) for the first time in installation form. Together with her childhood friend and director Joanna Hogg, Swinton presents Flat 19, a multimedia reconstruction of her London flat in the 1980s and an exploration of memory, space and personal history.
Finally, Swinton pays tribute to one of her greatest artistic influences, director Derek Jarman (1942–1994). This section, enriched with material from her own archive, includes a large-screen installation featuring scenes from the film The Last of England (1987), as well as a special installation with previously unreleased Super 8 footage from Jarman’s personal collection.
Tilda Swinton’s exhibition ‘Ongoing’ runs until 28 June and is accompanied by a summer programme of film screenings on the rooftop of Onassis Ready.
