Harun Farocki (1944 – 2014) was a seminal figure amongst the filmmakers and intellectuals that emerged from the highly-charged political debates in Europe at the end of the 1960s. His oeuvre constitutes an archaeology of the political economy of media and images that question the efficacy and validity of the moving image as a mode of documentation and analysis.

Emerging from within this vast body of work that combines humanist, anarchic, and aesthetic militancy, "Harun Farocki: Counter Music" explores the filmmaker’s continual analysis of shifting modes of labor, production, and consumption. Indeed, current disenchantments with labor practices across the world, combined with the mass displacement of workers which have taken place under the guise of globalization have added renewed urgency and energy to Farocki’s incisive reflections on the nature of human and social agency.

The exhibition is curated by Okwui Enwezor and Antje Ehmann with Damian Lentini.

"Harun Farocki: Counter Music" is organized by Haus der Kunst in cooperation with Sammlung Goetz with the support of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris / Salzburg and Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, with thanks to Harun Farocki GbR.

"Workers Leaving the Factory" © Harun Farocki, 1995
"Workers Leaving the Factory" © Harun Farocki, 1995
"An Image", Harun Farocki, 1983
"An Image", Harun Farocki, 1983
Leandro Listorti, Balloon Factory, Buenos Aires 2013
Leandro Listorti, Balloon Factory, Buenos Aires 2013
Photo: "Gegen-Musik" (Counter-Music), 2004, courtesy Harun Farocki
Photo: "Gegen-Musik" (Counter-Music), 2004, courtesy Harun Farocki
Photo: "An Image", Harun Farocki, 1983
Photo: "An Image", Harun Farocki, 1983
Magda Kulak, Natural History Museum, Lodz 2013
Magda Kulak, Natural History Museum, Lodz 2013