First presented as part of the group exhibition ‘Under the Volcano’ at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, and shortly about to be exhibited at Harewood House near Leeds (where the film was shot) ‘Bellevue’ is an intricate, audacious work by last year’s Northern Art Prize recipient Paul Rooney.

Based upon Malcolm Lowry’s short story ‘Lunar Caustic’, whose flights of fancy emanate from inside the walls of a 1930’s New York psychiatric hospital, Rooney’s video takes place against the idealised backdrop of a picture-perfect English country house, and depicts an advertising agency focus group (on a company away-day) discussing the use of Lowry’s writing in a campaign. Colliding contemporary marketing jargon with the literary innovations of mid-20th Century modernism, ‘Bellevue’ subjects ‘reality’ to various levels of scrutiny; highlighting the potential for imaginative projection (and creative confusion) engendered by the written word.

Co-commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella with the Bluecoat, in association with Harewood House, Leeds and Spacex, Exeter.

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