Concept

-2001-

Tuscany is frequently used as a location for films and advertising. For this reason, a political discussion has been going on in the region about copyrighting the landscape. With the video Commercial Landscape, Jankowski produced five adverts of his own selling Tuscany’s countryside. After a whole minute of stationary footage, pure landscape, the action starts. Actors from Italian advers recite a script composed of quotes from newspaper articles chronicling the debate. Two children on their way home from school pause in the middle of an endless alley of Mediterranean Cyprus trees, and one remarks, »Films such as A Room with a View have attracted millions of tourists and have led to great prosperity for some hotels.« Welcoming them at home with outstretched arms, Grandma notes, »If Tuscany is seen less on TV, people may not enjoy coming here as much. But maybe this is just one of the region’s ploys to get more attention.« The work is ideally slipped into a museum‘s Italian landscape galleries on a flat screen.

Video