Claes Söderquist

Epitaf

Claes Söderquist

A 1981 short film.

I frack

Claes Söderquist

Arne Högsander

In Söderquist's first film [I frack] In Tuxedo, playfulness and improvisation are combined with absurd humor. An artist steps into an empty studio and begins assembling objects into a tree-like sculpture. The sculpture is adorned with small white paper clouds, puppets and undefinable items; all the while, the studio fills up with new things: a suitcase, a mirror and formal attire. The artist, now wearing a top hat and tuxedo, paints the paper clouds and the wall in a frenzy of activity, ending with his sitting exhausted in a corner surrounded by the mess he has created. The growing chaos, the various layers of narrative and the music of the soundtrack, which was improvised and recorded live during a viewing of the final film cut, interact in counterpoint.

Le Génie Civil

Claes Söderquist, Jan Håfström

Old photographs and pictures with a dialogless soundtrack of a train ride.

Travelog: Porträtt – Bilder från en resa

Claes Söderquist

A black-and-white travel journal, in which the themes of memories and their relationship to the past suddenly catch up and rush away from us. The film is based on a series of portraits of American artists, all of whom belong to a young and politicized generation, presented in static tableaus from their studios, films and home environments.

Landskap

Claes Söderquist

Landscape is a focused and tightly formed panorama, whose masterly projection of natural sound and cyclical construction are manifested in seasonal color and light variations and in flowing water.

Labyrinth

Claes Söderquist

Labyrinth was filmed in Malmö in the south of Sweden in the summer of 2012. It forms a trilogy together with Landscape (1985 – 1987) and Passages – Portrait of a City (2001). It is a minimal film based on time, place and movement and like Passages, it is also a portrait of a city, but of a different and more intimate kind.

Passages – Portrait of a City

Claes Söderquist

Passages was filmed in Malmö, a city in the south of Sweden. It is a non-narrative film based on time, place and movement, which forms a trilogy with Landscape (1985 – 1987) and Labyrinth (2013). 48 different locations in the city were documented using circular pan shots.