With »All Memory Is Theft«, the ZKM presents a comprehensive retrospective of the Belgian film and media artist Johan Grimonprez (*1962), whose work straddles the line between theory and practice, art and cinema, documentation and fiction.

„Who owns our imagination in a world where existence is shaken, and truth wanders like a shipwrecked refugee? Are they the storytellers who can keep contradictions at bay by slipping between the languages given to us and becoming time travelers of the imagination?“ (Johan Grimonprez)

Based on an archaeology of today's media landscape, Grimonprez combines fragments from films, television news, advertisements, cinema and amateur films, as well as the Internet, weaving new narratives that challenge our perception of reality. Grimonprez' works, which have been presented in the most significant museums worldwide and have been awarded numerous times at festivals, showcase how the manner of representation of actuality and imagination, of CNN and Hollywood, have become intertwined today. They thus emphasize the complexity of our media-shaped present, which is more susceptible to manipulations than ever in times of populism and conspiracy theories rampant on the Internet.

The exhibition presents Johan Grimonprez' works from the last 30 years in a multifaceted parcours, where moving images, archival materials, and quotes are intertextually woven together. The exhibition includes film installations, feature and short films, vlogs, storyboards, and drawings by the artist, spanning from his early works such as »Kobarweng or Where is your Helicopter« (1992) and his multi-channel installation “It will be alright if you come again (…)” (1994) through his documenta X contribution »dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y« from 1997 to his latest film »Soundtrack to a Coup d‘Etat« (2024), co-produced by the ZKM for the exhibition, which has been nominated for the Oscars® as Best Documentary – a fast-paced montage of archival material that deals with the independence of the Congo from Belgian colonial rule in 1960 and the assassination of the first freely elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, tracing the connections between jazz music, geopolitics, and colonial power dynamics during the Cold War.

Referring to Paul Virilio, Johan Grimonprez once stated that every technology also produces its own accident: „With the ship, one invented shipwreck; with flying, airplane crashes,“ said the French philosopher and media theorist. One could add that with the invention of virtual reality and AI, reality has gone awry. Thus, Grimonprez' works indicate not only that the media no longer need to catch up with reality today, but rather that it is reality that must now catch up with the media.

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