Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin / BLACK MARKET

Still from Black Market, 2010 
 

In the late 1940's the Egyptian surrealists quickly disbanded, many went to France. Some like the painter Al-Talmesany, gave up the plastic arts and embraced film-making, which he argued was an art for the people, while he believed Surrealism was art in service of nothing. He went on to produce and direct The Black Market, a seminal piece of social realism made 3 years before Vittorio De Sica’s, The Bicycle Thieves.

We spent months trying to track down a copy of the Black Market and eventually located a single VHS copy.

We had the film transferred onto DVD and did not have time to view the film until it was already installed and playing in the gallery. We quickly realized that the first half was missing. The DVD transfer company explained that they were unable to transfer the first half for ethical reasons… It had been copied over with 1970’s era pornography.