Danica Dakic
30 April - 07 August 2011
|
| Danica Dakic
Isola Bella, 2007 - 2008
Still from single-channel video projection, color, sound. 19:08 min.
©Danica Dakic, VG Bild-Kunst. Image courtesy of the artist. |
| |
DANICA DAKIĆ
April 30 - August 7, 2011
Bosnian artist Danica Dakić creates videos and photographs that explore
displacement, role-playing, and alienation. Her exhibition features
Isola Bella (2007-2008), a video created with the residents of a
facility for the mentally and physically disabled, the Home for the
Protection of Children and Youth, in a town outside of Sarajevo. Dakić
transforms the facility’s small theater into a film set by inserting a
19th-century wallpaper design called "Isola Bella,” which features
imagery of this tropical island, and a piano. Enlisting the residents as
participants, they wear Victorian paper masks—ranging from Marie
Antoinette to Carmen Miranda to Caesar to a Native American chief—which
hide their identities and expressions and allow them to role-play and to
re-invent themselves. The video alternates between the residents’
performance in front of the wallpaper and their reactions as audience
members. The sense of abundance created by the lush scenery and ornate
masks is disrupted by the contrast with residents’ plain clothes and the
institution’s linoleum floor. Through storytelling and improvised
songs, the residents weave together their personal histories and
desires, creating a space between documentary and performance that is
part fact and part fantasy. The video projection is accompanied by a
three-part "movie poster.” This will be Dakić’s first solo exhibition in
a U.S. museum.
Organized by Anne Ellegood, Hammer senior curator.
Danica Dakić was born in 1962 in Sarajevo and currently lives in both
Sarajevo and Düsseldorf. She has studied at The Academy of Fine Arts,
Sarajevo; the University of Arts, Belgrade; and the Academy of Fine
Arts, Düsseldorf. Dakic has had solo shows at Museum of Contemporary
Art, Zagreb; Generali Foundation, Vienna; Wilhelm-Hack-Museum,
Ludwigshafen; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf; Kunsthaus Langenthal,
Langenthal; Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, Ljubljana; Kulturzentrum
Sinsteden, Sinsteden; National Gallery of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo;
Kunstverein Ulm, Ulm; and Obala Art Centar, Sarajevo. She has
participated in many group exhibitions including documenta 12, Kassel;
the 2003 and 2009 Istanbul Biennials, Istanbul; the 2003 Valenica
Biennial, Valencia; the 2010 Biennale of Sydney; and the 2010 Liverpool
Biennial, Liverpool. This is her first solo show in a U. S. museum.
www.hammer.ucla.edu
|