New works by François Bucher
Marta Deskur
Ksenija Turcic

June 9-July 28, 2001

Audio interviews of each resident artist by Koan Jeff Baysa:

Ksenija Turcic with Koan Jeff Baysa

Marta Deskur with Koan Jeff Baysa

François Bucher with Koan Jeff Baysa

Museum of Mankind : François Bucher

Museum of Mankind is a video installation depicting the statues that stand high on the roof of the Museum of Mankind in London. François Bucher has shot these cornerstones of Western philosophy and politics with a powerful zoom against a twilight blue sky. The hand-held camera endures the stare of the statues, defying immortality. Images are projected in the upper corners of the gallery. Sound is spatially distributed so that the viewer is surrounded by the direct sound of steady London traffic. Less audible selected tunes reach the ear as well. This piece reveals the hidden elements in the architecture that spell out an alphabet of supremacy. Being Latin American on the one hand while having a French father heavily involved with the history of Western thought, Bucher’s work is a continual critical negotiation between two cultural codes. Parallel to this there is a reflection on cinematic language and its metaphorical potential. The shooting of inanimate statues stems from a reflection on Jean-Luc Godard’s film “Le Mépris”. This visual metaphor was previously quoted by Bucher in his video works “Two Essays on Contempt” (2001) and “Twin Murders” (1999).

New Baby : Marta Deskur

In a multimedia installation and web site project, New Baby?, Marta Deskur questions the significance of family today and the conflicting issues this question addresses. As a socio-economic and political investigation, family has always been central to her work. For “Family in New York”, Deskur initially placed an advertisement in the Voice to interview “people who live alone, couples with no children, couples of different race and religion, gay and lesbian couples and singles, pregnant women, women who have terminated their pregnancies, people who have chosen not to have children”. She selected 14 individuals, submitted them to a questionnaire of identical questions dealing with this subject and then photographed them in her studio. The web site that she has created sums up all of this research and invites the viewer to pursue these discussions. Projected on the wall of an enclosed space, viewers are invited to enter one by one a confessional-like-space and interact directly over the web site. On the outside walls, color photographs of the interviewees are displayed in light boxes as a tribute to their physical presence.

Phase : Ksenija Turcic

Ksenija Turcic presents a new multimedia installation, Phase, where she pursues her investigation of emotional space. In this work, she is interested in the communication space between men and women. Motions of communication between two people are likened in her words to “a whirlpool of misunderstandings that circle within an energetic field”. Men are prone to hide their emotions, whereas women tend to scrutinize and elaborate, sometimes to an extreme. Turcic has filmed the face of a man performing familiar daily gestures (e.g. eating, drinking, shaving); the image is in slow motion and inexpressive. The sound of his breathing becomes audible as the viewer approaches the image. On another screen, a 3rd view of a woman’s face is projected. For a second, both images freeze. This moment in time reflects the possibility of a shared space of communication. A soundtrack of inaudible whispering voices of women can be heard. When both images resume motion, this sound disappears.