The Bull Laid Bear
Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler
FilmOctober 3 – October 16, 2013
“If I walk in and say, ‘I am going to blow myself up’ in a crowded subway and extort somebody for money, you can probably get people to pay you a lot of money to not blow yourself up. The banks […] were effectively walking around with bombs on them all the time.”
– Yves Smith, The Bull Laid Bear
In their second collaborative film Zanny Begg (Sydney) and Oliver Ressler (Vienna) focus on the post-2008 financial and economic crisis post. The Bull Laid Bear “lays bare” the economic recession (bear market) that hides behind each boom time (bull market). The film pokes fun at the slippery justifications made for the bailouts and austerity packages by exploring how governments in the United States, and other countries such as Ireland, turned a banking crisis into a budgetary crisis at the governmental level.
The Bull Laid Bear is structured around a series of interviews with US economists and activists including: William K. Black, a white-collar criminologist; Yves Smith, the author of the blog Naked Capitalism; Tiffiniy Cheng, campaign coordinator for A New Way Forward; and Gerald Epstein co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute in Amherst, MA. The material gathered from these four interviewees has been blended with hand drawn animations to create a quasi-fictitious criminal world of gangster bankers and corrupt courts.
The film probes our collective “beliefs” in financial markets, unravelling responsibility for the 2008 financial meltdown and looking at some of the causes of the spiralling economic crisis in Europe.
About the Artists
Oliver Ressler (b. 1970) lives and works as an artist and filmmaker in Vienna, Austria. He produces exhibitions, projects in public space, and films about economics, democracy, global warming, forms of resistance, and social alternatives. Solo exhibitions have been featured at the Berkeley Art Museum, USA; Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade; Kunstraum at the University of Lüneburg; Centro Cultural Conde Duque, Madrid; Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, Egypt; Bunkier Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery, Krakow and The Cube Project Space, Taipei. A retrospective of his 15 films took place at Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève throughout 2013. // ressler.at
Zanny Beggis an artist, writer and curator who lives and works in Sydney, Australia. Her work investigates the politics of space, including its architecture and the social relationships that construct it. Beggis has participated in several residencies, including Australia-China Council Residency (Hong Kong, May 2007), Asia-Link Residency (Indonesia, June 2008), Mess Hall (Chicago, 2010), Australia Indonesia Institute Residency (Indonesia, 2011), and Australia Council Residency (Barcelona, 2012). Her recent exhibitions have been featured at Emeraldtown, Gary Indiana, Artspace, (Sydney), Istanbul Biennale (Turkey), the Taipei Biennial (Taiwan), Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna, Austria), National Centre for Contemporary Art (Moscow, Russia). Her film projects include Treat (or Trick) (2009, 7mins), The Focus Group (2010, 7mins), Zugzwang (2011 6mins), What Would it Mean to Win? (2008, 40mins, with Oliver Ressler) and Emeraldtown: Gary Indiana (2010, 20mins, with Keg de Souza). // zannybegg.com
The Bull Laid Bear: 24 min., 2012
Concept, film editing and production: Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler
Animation and drawings: Zanny Begg
Camera and interviews: Oliver Ressler
Vocals: Singing Sadie
Piano: Mick Hana
Other music: Captain Ahab
Camera Singing Sadie: Arunas Klupsas
Sound Singing Sadie: Jon Hunter
Sound and image editing: Rudi Gottsberger
Special thanks to Nancy Folbre, Brian Holmes, Jon Hunter, Pascal Jurt, Arunas Klupsas and Singing Sadie.
Financial assistance provided by Kulturamt der Steiermärkischen Landesregierung and Australia Council for the Visual Arts New Work Grant.