Harun Farocki, Celebrated Filmmaker, Dead at 70

Renowned German filmmaker and video artist Harun Farocki died on Wednesday at 70-years-old, Monopol reports. Galerie Ropac confirmed the artist’s passing to the German magazine.The gallery has represented Farocki since 2007.

Born in 1944 in present day Czechoslovakia, but what was then part of Germany, the artist made over 90 films during his lifetime. He studied at the German Academy of Film and Television from 1966 to 1968, developing a unique documentary style that was deeply critical of the media and ways in which images have shaped contemporary life and ideology.

From 1974 to 1984 Harocki served as the editor of Munich-based film journal Filmkritik. He moved to California during the 1990s where he taught at UC Berkeley. Farocki began greater engagement with the art world in the 2000s. He took part in Documenta 12, presenting Deep Play (2007), which broke down footage from the 2006 World Cup, held in Germany, across 12 monitors.

He has enjoyed solo museum shows at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, New York’s MoMA, Cologne’s Museum Ludwig, and London’s Tate Modern, among others.

Aside from Galerie Ropac, Farocki is represented by Galerie Barbara Weiss in Berlin and Greene Naftali Gallery in New York.