Cécile B. Evans: Made With Minds on Nowness.com
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Baldessari-like shapes of color float into view in Made With Minds, a surreal new film by Cécile B. Evans. The Belgian-American artist uses the Palazzo Peckham, an innovative gallery space which popped up during this year’s 55th Venice Biennale, as an unearthly backdrop for one of her first forays into video art. The former boatyard and current warehouse on the edge of the floating city was transformed into a grungy hub for a host of South London artists.
Today’s film features some of their work, such as a salon filled with real-life palm trees erupting through skylights from Rob Chavasse, a psychedelic lobby created by Jon Rafman and pieces by Dora Budor, Samara Scott, Victor Timofeev and Amy Petra Woodward. “We didn’t want to base it on ordinary gallery models,” explains Lucky PDF’s Ollie Hogan of the space he created with gallerist Hannah Barry. “The style of the work emerging in Peckham is very much art for social environments, which is democratizing practices and creating conversations between people and networks.”
Inspired here by the tension between idealism and failure inherent in propaganda films while also reflecting on the digital art she is known for, Evans has previously exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and Art Basel, Miami, and last year received the 2012 Emdash Award, Frieze Art Fair’s annual prize for emerging artists.
