The Philadelphia Museum of Art often features in its galleries a programme entitled “Live Cinema” that explores the video and film works of local, national and international artists.
The videos are usually integrated in the various galleries, creating in this way dialogues or contrasts with the works of art displayed in the museum.
At present the focus of the new programme, entitled “In the Round” (running until February 2011) and curated by November Paynter, is on contemporary art from the East Mediterranean.
The programme features six artists - Ziad Antar, Inci Eviner, Gülsün Karamustafa, Hassan Khan, Maha Maamoun and Christodoulos Panayiotou - and, moving from the concept of theatre-in-the-round in which the audience surrounds the stage, explores cinematic representations and cinematically inspired practices in contemporary arts.
Each artist interpreted the main theme of the exhibition in a very personal way: Antar explored obvious expectations and conclusions through videos showing simple activities; Karamustafa interestingly mixed newsreel from the 60s and the 70s that were originally screened before and after films playing in Istanbul-based cinemas; Khan analysed instead the idea of portraiture in film and the meaning of the word "corporation" as borrowed from its Latin etymology of corporare, that is “to combine or form into one body”; Maamoun juxtaposed the pyramids to Cairo’s chaotic city structure, while Panayiotou invited the watcher of his videos, that feature two folded theatre backdrops, to imagine their own play and become the protagonists of his work.
People interested in fashion will find particularly interesting the three video works by Inci Eviner, part of the "Nouveau Citoyen" (New Citizen) (2009) project, located in the galleries dedicated to the arts of Europe and Asia (galleries 223, 259 and 288 - the images in this post feature the three videos as exhibited at the Musée d'Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne).
Eviner - who is widely exhibited in Europe, Asia and the US - is known for her drawings that often combine intricate wallpaper-like decorations and human characters.
Historically the definition “novus civis” described the first member of a family to serve in the Roman Senate, but Eviner used these words to look at immigration flows and at the transformations they bring in our societies, creating animations and disturbing narratives that incorporate human figures moving, dancing or walking in backgrounds such as wallpapers, fabrics and tiles.
Eviner’s immigrants inhabit ornamental symmetrical patterns such as floral toiles and Çintemani tiles (in some cases, these works display a derivation from the artist's 2002 wallpaper-based works "An Explosive Heart" and "Somebody Inside" - fourth image in this post), breaking any kind of boundaries concerning identity and revealing new areas of freedom.
The videos are installed in galleries that feature textiles or tiles to create contrasts, but also to allow the visitors to go beyond the decorative purpose of tapestries and explore the latter as if they were a sort of geography of spaces.
Inspired by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Diane Arbus, Marlene Dumas, Nancy Spero, Ursula K.Le Guin, Luce Irigaray, Eviner also explored the role of women in this world populated by new citizens, incorporating in her animations female figures that she uses to analyse the way women become part of a symbolic and established order.
At times Eviner’s works look like crossovers incorporating modern images, the 1700s wallpaper produced by the Remondinis, a family of printers from Bassano del Grappa (their wallpaper covered the walls of Venice's La Fenice theatre) and bits and pieces of classic Toile de Jouy textiles (with their polychrome floral designs or monochrome scenes), produced in France from 1760 by the Manufacture Royale de Jouy.
While you can read more about the social implications of Eviner's work here, from a merely aesthetic point of view the three videos forming the "New Citizen" project also tie in with fashion (think about the toile, floral prints or wallpaper that the artist uses as her backgrounds...) and I wouldn't be surprised to see this artist collaborating with a fashion designer, maybe creating thought-provoking prints or radically reinventing toiles (in Timorous Beasties style) and tiles.
In fact, when was the last time we saw Toile de Jouy in a (men/women's wear) collection, maybe matched with bright colours and accessories or presented in an unusual way? I think it was in Lacroix's Spring/Summer 2005 collection with black and white or beige and shocking pink Toile de Jouy suits, jackets and bermudas.
Maybe the time has come to rediscover it in a more arty and radical way?
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