.H
preview
uteri
1%.”.-
3*"!
‘7‘?-
*9
\‘ gr
PHOTOGRAPHYSMHDEO
Breda Beban — Still
E S" '_.~t‘- .76 Sci-g) Sat l8 NOV.
By the early 19905, the Yugoslav Federation was falling apart. As political tensions escalated, the threat of war was imminent. Born in Novi Sad in the former Yugoslavia, artist and filmmaker Breda Beban grew increasingly disillusioned. Armed with just one suitcase and no money, she and her partner Hrvoje Horvatic fled Croatia for Britain.
As part of a touring exhibition from Sheffield’s Site Gallery, Beban shows photographic and video work. From her hotel room in Amsterdam where she is attending the 18th World Wide Video Festival, the artist explains that the photographs were never intended to be seen in the confines of a gallery space. But Beban was encouraged by the Site Gallery to include these deeply personal images in the show. They reveal a past marked with tragedy. In An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus, taken in 1991, photographs of places and objects document Beban and Horvatic’s flight from Croatia to Tuscany. In I Lay On The Bed Waiting For His Heart To Stop Beating their nomadic existence is captured as they move from place to place. And in The Miracle Of Death, Beban photographs a hospital bed followed by images of a cardboard box placed in various locations. Reading the accompanying text, the picture becomes clearer as
GROUP
SHOW/INSTALLATION Good Luck For Youl
Amoebase
Glasgow: Transmission until Sat 7 Oct
Upsta:rs at li‘ansriiission, the first thincj
Falling down: Still by Breda Beba
we discover that the box contains the ashes of her partner, Hrvoje Horvatic, who died in 1997 at London’s Homerton Hospital at the age of 39.
Along with the photographs, Beban is showing three video pieces. Never Only One x 3, shows the artist having psychic readings with three different clairvoyants. In Still, Beban is falling down in front of the Houses of Parliament and in Let’s Call It Love a turntable plays a love song as war planes fly overhead.
’The psychic reading sessions are a catalyst in a way, as all the psychics talk about the past,’ says Beban. 'The readers are contextualising the photographs, which represent the past life and they are propelling me into the future. The other two video pieces Still and Let’s Call It Love are basically my vision of the future. Of course they are about loneliness and longing but they are also about a feeling of helplessness within the context of world politics which I feel is highly choreographed.’
Her work communicates a great sense of loss, which draws the viewer into Beban's very real experiences. 'My work tells a story, because there is a story to be told,’ she explains. ’When I look at works of art, I like to question and think about the work but I feel that the emotions are almost gone. What I wanted to do - and I don’t know whether I managed it — was to bring back emotions into visual art.’ A goal Beban has almost certainly achieved. (Helen Monaghan)
In fact, employing opposite tactics, Craft and Wurtrich dominate the show, siclelininq the other works Of the rest, Elizabeth Kent has crafted a Video of a Virtual eriVironment in the form of a room composed of black and white squares, slowly revealed Via sudden Playstation-style camera
Liz Craft's multi—armed plastic goddess
74 THELIST .
you notice is Californian Ll/ Craft's for; lady The life-si/e iiiulti-armed pfastic cjoddess, a woman With a leei'ncj fox's head, would look at home |.". the ‘.‘."II‘.(l()\.".‘ of a twisted alternative Disney store, thoiicjli the iniacjinary i::c>\.'ic> tie-in iiiicjlit have trouble With the BBlt After Craft's iii-your-face flariibcwance, the neat, conteiiij‘)lative "iiiill't‘ of Peter \lViirtricli's literary 'flciclcl ll/ comes as something of a It‘llt‘l lhe piece is a storybook house and cjaiclen, part of a series of literate lc-cjo homes and made, like all of ‘V'liiitric li's work to date, from I:arcl‘oack hooks Quietly placed in the centre of the space, sucjcjestincj ":.f‘:l.'llilll‘)l fairytales, it's irresistible
swoops. Alex Frost's latest works, irieanwhile, are mosaicjked lumps, a calm counterpoint to the obsessive- compulsive frenzy of the outsider art they reseirible
The real treat, however, is in the basement gallery, where Lyndal Jefferies" Airioebase lives and breathes. The sculpture is a meditation on matter, \Vith sixteen pools of mineral— saturated liquid disturbed at random by sub-bass pulses The low frequency judders cause seemingly solid circles to ripple, crystals to form and irieniscuses to break Tagged as an ongomg research project, as opposed to an art show, Airioebase demands repeat Visits (Jack Mottram)
' Artbeat
News and views from the world of art
THE FRUITMARKET GALLERY in Edinburgh was the only venue to receive The Herald Angel Award for the Visual Arts at this year's Edinburgh Festival. The award was given for the outstanding video works by Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, Turbulent (pictured) and Soliloquy. And it's not just the panel of judges who were impressed. In its first four weeks of opening, the exhibition attracted 22,210 visitors. But be warned, the show ends on Saturday 23 September.
ARTIST MICHAEL LANDY has been chosen as the first Winner of The Times/Artangel Open which offers two artists the opportunity to realise their artistic ambitions. Landy's commisSion Break Down was selected from over 700 submissions and Will be created at the end of November. The London- born artist exhibited With fellow students Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas in Freeze Part 7 and more recently, his work was included in this year’s British Art Show.
SUBMISSIONS ARE SOUGHT for Gifted, a selling exhibition of contemporary visual arts, craftworks and design which will run from Friday 10 November—Sunday 31 December at An Tairbeart Arts Centre in Tarbert. If you think you've got what it takes, then send a slide, photo or e-mail an image of your work (SAE for return) by Saturday 14 October. For further information call 01880 821116 (fax 01880 821117) or e-mail exhibit@artscen.com.
AND FINALLY RESIDENCIES have been announced for Visual artists at Hospitalfield House in Arbroath by the Royal Scottish Academy. Prowded through the RSA's Sir William Gillies Bequest Fund, the three-month residencies can be taken at any time sUitable to the winning artist and Hospitalfield. Those eligible for the award must be young profes5i0iial Visual artists, who are Scottish or have studied in Scotland and are now permanently based here. Interested artists should apply for further information to The Administrative Secretary, The Royal Scottish Academy, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL. Tel: 0131225 6671, fax: 0131 225 2349. Closing date for applications is Thursday 30 November.
Film still of Shirin Neshat's Turbulent