Javier Téllez, Stills from Letter on the Blind For the Use of Those Who See, 2007. 16mm film transferred to high-definition video, color, sound; 27:36 min.. Collection of the artist; courtesy Peter Kilchmann Galerie, Zurich. Commissioned by Creative Time, New York, as part of Six Actions for New York City, co-produced by Peter Kilchmann Galerie, Zurich.
Phil Collins, he who laughs last laughs longest, 2006, Production still, Courtesy the artist.
Phil Collins, Still from he who laughs last laughs longest, 2006, Courtesy the artist.
Phil Collins, Stills from they shoot horses, 2004, Video, duration: 7 hrs.,installation.
Artur Zmijewski, THEM/SIE, Single channel video, projection or monitor, 26.30 min., color, sound, Polish with German or English subtitles, Still Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich.
Artur Zmijewski, THEM/SIE, Single channel video, projection or monitor, 26.30 min., color, sound, Polish with German or English subtitles, Still Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich.
Artur Zmijewski, Repetition, 2005, video, 75 min., video still, collection Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (photo: Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw)
Artur Zmijewski, 80064, 2004, DVD, 9 min., video still, courtesy Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw. |
|
Institute
of Contemporary Art
100 Northern Avenue
617-478-3100
Boston
Acting Out:
Social Experiments in Video
March 18-October 18, 2009
In this all-video exhibition the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston introduces a new generation of artists — Yael Bartana, Johanna Billing, Phil Collins, Javier Téllez, and Artur Zmijewski — exploring the expressive potential of social experiment, where the impromptu actions of people are captured to surprisingly powerful effect. In their videos, the artists engage non-actors in situations that allow unscripted actions and emotions to unfold. Facing physical challenges, disparate political ideals, or high-stakes competition, the participants' reactions highlight the forces of isolation, connection, and friction that shape our lives today.
"Since video's rise in the late 1960s, the ICA has had a history of marking new trends in the medium," says Jill Mevedow, Director of the ICA. "Acting Out offers a timely group of artworks in which artists, in concert with real people, reveal profound, important, and disturbing aspects of the social condition.
"The artists' unique approaches cede some artistic control to the participants so that their natural reactions and social chemistry can come forward as a powerfully expressive medium," says Jen Mergel, Associate Curator at the ICA. "By staging provocative and poignant scenarios, the artists capture the participants' explosive outbursts or more passive gestures. These acute emotions are highlighted and intensified by audio, visual, or rhythmic cues in the video."
In Wild Seeds (2005), Yael Bartana (b. 1970, Israel) records Israeli teens in a game, first playful, then unsettling, in which "police" pull "settlers" from a clinging group. The escalating hostility of action and dialogue — translated into English on a separate screen — echo the conflicted sentiments in the Occupied Territories.
Yael Bartana was born in Kfar Yehezkel, Israel, in 1970, and currently lives and works in Tel Aviv and Amsterdam. She received her BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, her MFA from the New York School of Visual Arts, and participated in Rijks akademie van Beelden de Kunsten in Amsterdam. Her Wild Seeds installation was featured in the 9th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (2005). Bartana has been featured in a number solo exhibitions including: PS1 MoMA, New York (2008-09); Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2008); The Power Plant, Toronto (2007); Museum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland (2005); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2004). Notable group exhibitions include: Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany (2007); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2007); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2007); and the 27th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2007).
Johanna Billing's (b. 1973, Sweden) work Magical World (2005) presents Croatian children rehearsing an American song. The fragile melancholy and optimism in the song, coupled with the children's struggle with a new language, evoke their country's efforts to adopt Western ideals.
Johanna Billing was born in Jönköping, Sweden, in 1973 and currently lives and works in Stockholm. She received her education from Konstfack International College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm. Billing has been featured in a number of solo exhibitions including: This is how we walk on the Moon, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago (2008); Forever Changes, Museum for Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2007); and Magical World, PS1 MoMA, New York (2006). Notable group exhibitions include: Here We Dance, Tate Modern, London (2008); Amateurs, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2008); Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany (2007); Stop. Look. Listen: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY (2007); Belief, Singapore Biennale (2006); 9th Istanbul Biennal, Turkey (2005); Dialectics of Hope, 1st Moscow Biennale, Lenin Museum (2005); and Delays and Revolutions, Italian Pavilion, 50th Venice Biennale (2003).
Phil Collins's (b. 1970, England) video entitled he who laughs last laughs longest (2006) highlights the hysteria of televised competition. In a contest to see who can laugh longest, set in the small Scottish town where television was born, laughter is transformed from a natural and personal expression of release into an exhausting, defeating performance.
Phil Collins was born in Runcorn, England, in 1970 and currently lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. He received his BA from the University of Manchester and his MFA from the University of Ulster School of Art and Design. His video installation he who laughs last laughs longest debuted at Frieze Art Fair in 2006. Collins has been featured in a number of solo exhibitions including: soy mi madre, Aspen Art Museum (2008); the world wont listen, Dallas Museum of Art (2007); Forum 59, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2007); New Work: Phil Collins, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2006); yeah…you, baby you, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and Milton Keynes Gallery, New York (2006). Notable group exhibitions include: Life on Mars, 55th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2008); War and Discontent, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2007); Turner Prize 2006 Exhibition, Tate Britain, London (2006); 9th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (2005); and Belonging, 7th Sharjah International Art Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2005).
In Letter on the Blind, for the Use of Those Who See (2007), Javier Téllez (b. 1969, Venezuela) invites a group of blind people to touch and share their perceptions of a live elephant. Inspired by the Indian parable "The Blind Men and the Elephant," Tellez updates the ancient narrative's lesson that every being experiences the same thing in a unique way.
Javier Téllez was born in Valencia, Venezuela, in 1969, and lives and works in Long Island, New York. Téllez's Letter on the Blind, For the Use of Those who See was a highlight of the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Téllez has been featured in a number of solo exhibitions including: Production-in-Residence, Baltic Art Centre, Visby, Sweden (2007); Distinguished Artist in Residence: Javier Téllez, Aspen Art Museum (2006); La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Rozelle Hospital), The Power Plant Gallery, Toronto (2005); and S-t-e-r-e-o-v-i-e-w, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2005). Notable group exhibitions include: 16th Biennale of Sydney (2008); Whitney Biennial, New York (2008); 2nd Moscow Biennale (2007); Dark Places, Santa Monica Museum of Art (2006); When Artists Say We, Artists Space, New York (2006); Bienal Iberoamericana de Lima, Peru (2002); and the 49th Venice Biennale (2001).
Artur Zmijewski (b. 1966, Poland) organizes a workshop in which social activists create and desecrate each other's symbols of belief. THEM (SIE) (2007) presents groups of nationalist Polish youth, conservative Catholics, leftist socialists, and Jewish activists who actively and aggressively negotiate, fight, or ultimately withdraw from the exchange in ways that echo the successes and failures of diplomacy.
Artur Zmijewski was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1966, and currently lives and works in Warsaw. He studied in Gregorz Kowalski's studio at the Department of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Zmijewski's THEM (SIE) debuted in Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany (2007) and its ICA presentation will be its U.S. debut. Zmijewski has been featured in a number of solo exhibitions including: Radical Solidarity, Trafo Gallery, Budapest (2008); Artur Zmijewski, Neuer Berliner Kunsteverein, Berlin (2007); The Polish Pavillion, 51st Venice Biennale (2005); Selected Works, 1998-2003, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2004); and An Eye for an Eye, MUCA Roma, Mexico City (2003). Notable group exhibitions include: Languages, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (2008); History Will Repeat Itself, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2008); The Impossible Theatre, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria and Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw (2006); and Irreducible: Contemporary Short Form Video 1995-2005, CAA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2005). |
