Anna Molska
14 January - 28 February 2012
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ANNA MOLSKA
Glasshouses
14 January – 28 February, 2012
We are pleased to announce our second solo show with Warsaw based artist
Anna Molska. In her new double-channel video installation Glasshouses
Molska combines two of her recent films: the semi-documentary Mourners
and Hecatomb, a surreal mise-en-scène originally shot on 16mm. Both
films take place in green houses, one now used as a gallery, a pristine
white space, the other a rundown vacant work place. The narrative sphere
developed during the social experiment of the Mourners set into motion
by the artist, provided the base for the visionary performance of
Hecatomb. However phantasmatic this second film’s scenery might appear,
its style is as concrete and down to earth as the Mourners. Both films
operate with in a restricted minimal setting and use a limited range of
precisely chosen down played props. These subtly directed sceneries
provocate peculiar afterimages, an atmospheric color scheme appears: the
pale brown winter coats of the Mourners make for an opaque and compact
sculptural presence and the dirty corrugated green roof sheets of the
glass house in Hecatomb fill the abandoned space with an animated
light-temperature, - a remote stage for an unpredictable act.
"I set up a ‘research station’ near the city of Radom, in the village
of Oronsko, famous for its sculpture center – a Mecca for sculptors in
Poland. There I met a small community – seven women friends from a folk
singing ensemble called Jarzebina (‘rowan’).
My intention was to change their natural environment, to clear it of
aspects and people they were familiar with: family, friends, duties,
everyday chores and folk costumes were removed. They were provided with a
set of rather neutral ‘working clothes’ – grey-brown winter coats –,
and the cozy spaces of their homes were replaced by a greenhouse, which
currently serves as a gallery. The ‘Mourner’ is an ancient profession.
When summoned they wail professionally in the funeral room or by the
deceased person’s coffin.
The most interesting motifs of their conversation were digressions about
death and the evil. Death, according to the Mourners sometimes has
feelings and is capable of taking pity on the individual. Evil is an
embodiment of the devil and a very traditional one at that, complete
with ‘horns, tail, hooves and a red rump’. You could always make some
sort of a deal with the devil, win or lose. Sometimes the devil would
assume as a human or animal form, such as that of a dog. It is Satan who
persuades people to sin and is responsible for all their misfortunes.
Unlike death, the devil has his humorous aspects. Death was something
the Mourners never joked about.
A year later - inspired by a so-defined motif of death and evil - I
decided to create a new work called Hecatomb. In Ancient Greece, a
hecatomb (Greek hecaton = 100) was a sacrifice of one hundred cattle.
The term has also come to denote a sacrifice in general and is connected
with a sense of loss. The film’s structure is based on cyclicality, the
film starting and ending with an almost identical scene of entering the
same space anew. It is an attempt to show what I fear the most, as well
as - in a general sense - my vision of the fears of the Mourners. I
decided to show ‘my evil’ not by using the phantasm of the devil or an
image of death as a Grim Reaper, but by creating the atmosphere of, or
describing in filmic terms the notion of ‘acedia’.
Making Hecatomb I was already thinking about how it would be to make a
film inspired by a film inspired by a film – whether there existed an
even denser essence, the message of which would be universal and clear.”
(Anna Molska)
Szklarnie/Glasshouses premiered in December 2011 at Foksal Gallery
Foundation, Warsaw. In 2009 Molska presented the US premier of her film
The Weavers at BROADWAY 1602, New York. Recent Shows (selected): 2011
‘Rearview Mirror’, The Power Plant, Toronto, curated by Christopher
Eamon; ‘THE THIRD ROOM / DER DRITTE RAUM / TRZECI POKOJ’, Kunsthalle
Düsseldorf; 2010 Screening and lecture at Tate Modern, London;
Anna Moska, Malmo Konsthall; ‘Villa Reykjavik’, Reykjavik - Foksal
Gallery Foundation; ‘While Bodies Get Mirrored – an Exhibition about
Movement Formalism and Space’, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst,
Zurich; ‘Early Years’, Kunst –Werke Institute for Contemporary Art,
Berlin; 2009 ‘Report on Probability’, Kunsthalle Basel; The
Generational: Younger Than Jesus", New Museum, New York; ‘Ain’t No
Sorry’, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; 5th Berlin Biennial (curated by
Adam Szymczyk and Elena Filipovic); 2008 Eastern European Residency
Exchange, Art in General, New York City
www.broadway1602.com
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