A caustic satire about the contemporary art world and the hypocrisy of enlightened society.
Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017.
Christian is a curator at a major contemporary art museum in Stockholm. His work is not only about producing meaning but also involves answering awkward questions from journalists, attracting sponsors, and, of course, marketing, which at times completely cancels out the initial artistic message. As a representative of the world of art, Christian promotes ideas of equality, trust, and care for others, something he is unable to follow in his own life.
The Square began life as an art project, an installation created by Ruben Östlund and producer Kalle Boman at the Vandalorum Museum in Sweden in 2014. It was a space of trust within which people were obliged to help anyone who asked. The most interesting thing in this work was that boundaries were necessary to invoke basic human values. What happens to people outside the square? What makes them turn away from other people’s suffering? This is the subject of Östlund’s satire, which asks the enlightened middle class, the target audience for contemporary art, a series of uncomfortable questions, including about the boundaries of tolerance. One of the funniest scenes in the film is an indirect reconstruction of the famous action by Oleg Kulik in which he played a dog and was deported from Sweden for attacking an exhibition visitor. Although this unfortunate person was not badly hurt, the Swedish authorities could not accept that the artist’s actions were for the sake of art. There is a gulf between the white cube of the museum and real violence, suffering, and despair. Can art reduce this distance? Or does it simply mark out the problematic zone? Östlund does not give direct answers, but he is no less provocative than Kulik.
The film will be screened in English and Swedish with Russian subtitles.
The Square
Director Ruben Östlund
Sweden, Germany, France, Denmark, 2017. 152 min. 18+