Image: Alix Pearlstein, The Drawing Lesson (production still), 2012, Single-channel HD (color, sound), 7:13 minutes. Pictured: Valda Setterfield and Brenna Palughi, Courtesy On Stellar Rays.
16th April – 16th June 2013
Whitechapel Gallery presents three artists’ films offering different approaches to performance and the body as part of Artists’ Film International, a touring programme of international film, video and animation selected by 14 partner organisations across the world.
Selected by Ballroom Marfa in Texas, American artist Alix Pearlstein (b. 1962) works with actors and dancers to explore the sometimes ambiguous relationship between the camera, viewer and subject. In The Drawing Lesson (2012), the viewer watches the participants who in turn watch each other before directing their gaze onto the viewer. Pearlstein is interested in reversing the passive relationship between the observer and the observed by turning the scrutiny back onto the viewer.
Norwegian artist Kaia Hugin (b. 1975) was chosen by KINOKINO Centre for Art and Film in Sandnes, Norway to present Five Parts – A Motholic Mobble (Part 5) (2012), part of an on-going series of video performances in which the main female figure hangs, levitates, floats or digs herself into the ground. Combining film, choreography and movement, Hugins’s unsettling performances explore psychological states of guilt and horror through physical acts.
Selected by Project 88 in Mumbai, India, Minds to Lose (2008-2012) by India-based artist Neha Choksi (b.1973), is taken from a performance during which the artist was anesthetised alongside four farm animals who were sedated by veterinarians. The public were encouraged to pet both artist and animals in their unconscious state as they became passive recipients of physical affection. Accompanied by a soundtrack of field recordings and fragments of a traditional Indian lullaby, the work explores conditions of volition and powerlessness.
The 14 Artists’ Film International partner organisations are: Ballroom Marfa, US; Belgrade Cultural Centre, Serbia; Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan, Afghanistan; Cinemathèque de Tanger, Morocco; City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand; Fundacion PRÒA, Argentina; Galleria D’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Italy; Hanoi DOCLAB, Hanoi, Vietnam; Istanbul Modern, Turkey; KINOKINO Centre for Art and Film, Norway; New Media Centre, Israel; Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong; Project 88, India and Video-Forum of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein Germany.
Kaia Hugin’s Five Parts – A Motholic Mobble (Part 5) (2012) is supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy.
Opening times: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm, Thursdays, 11am – 9pm.
Admission free. Whitechapel Gallery, 77 – 82 Whitechapel High Street,
London E1 7QX. Nearest London Underground Station: Aldgate East, Liverpool Street, Tower Gateway DLR. T + 44 (0) 20 7522 7888 info@whitechapelgallery.org
