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Salla Tykkä, "Lasso", Color film with sound, 3 minutes, 48 seconds. Edition of 7. 2000. Courtesy Salla Tykkä and Yvon Lambert Paris - New York | | |
For Immediate Release
Unidentified Emotions by Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Teresa Hubbard/Alexander Birchler and Salla Tykkä
December 6th 2007 - January 15th 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday 6 December, 6:30 - 9:00
Gallery Hours: Monday to Saturday 10:30 am to 7:00 pm or by appointments
Art Statements Gallery is delighted to present a significant video group exhibition titled Unidentified Emotions by four internationally acclaimed and influential contemporary artists, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Teresa Hubbard/Alexander Birchler and Salla Tykkä, for the first time in Hong Kong. This exhibition will feature four celebrated and ground-breaking video works from the participating artists.
Each of the four video works reflects and investigates the possibilities of the ephemera of internal feelings. The issues that arise in these films touch on a unifying sense of unidentified emotions. In Ahtila's Me/We; Okay; Gray, three short films resembling advertisements explore the issues of identity, sex, gender and fragments of reality. They do so in a way that reconfigures our perceptions of traditional video media. In their piece, Cardiff and Miller skilfully transform the role of the viewer by conveying an experiential atmosphere of urgency that is set around a burning house in the wilderness in House Burning. In the third work, the logic of time and space is challenged and dissolved by Hubbard/Birchler in Detached Building, a short film set in an empty house full of activities that alters physical and temporal realities. In the final oeuvre, a moment in a young woman's life is captured and exposed in Tykkä's Lasso. The subject's physically inaction and her undetected emotions remain unchanged while witnessing a surreal and poetic act powerfully echoes the viewers' role in relation to the work itself.
Together, these four pieces offer an intriguing challenge to the complexities of everyday human experience in a way that transforms the viewer from mere spectator into a willing actor who must confront basic human emotion in a thought-provoking way. The feelings that emerge at first glance may seem easy to label, but upon further introspection become less defined, and more transient.
About the artists
Eija-Liisa Ahtila was born 1959 in Hameenlinna, Finland and currently lives and works in Helsinki. Ahtila has been exhibiting in numerous leading institutions and exhibitions worldwide since 1988, including the prominent Doucmenta 11 in Kassel, Germany and the Nordic Pavilion, 48th Venice Biennale in 1999. She has also shown at Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Tate Modern in London, Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Busan Biennale 2004, Museum of Modern Art in New York and 51st Venice Biennale.
Janet Cardiff was born 1957 in Brussels, Ontario, Canada, and George Bures Miller was born 1960 in Vegreville, Alberta, Canada. Both currently live and work in Berlin, Germany and Grindrod, B.C., Canada. Cardiff and Miller presented "The Paradise Institute" in the Canadian Pavilion at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001, and were awarded with La Biennale di Venezia Special Award. Their most recent museum exhibition, "Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller: The Killing Machine and Other Stories 1995-2007", is at Miami Art Museum in Florida until the 20th of January, 2008.
Teresa Hubbard was born 1965 in Dublin, Ireland, and Alexander Birchler was born 1962 in Baden, Switzerland. They currently live and work in Austin, Texas, USA. Hubbard/Birchler have participated in the prestigious 48th Venice Biennale, and have also exhibited at Miami Art Museum, Mori Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art in Berlin, Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art and Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. Their first major survey in an American Museum will be held from the 14th of September, 2008 to the 4th of January, 2009 at Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and will travel to the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany in 2009.
Salla Tykkä was born 1973 in Helsinki, Finland, where she currently lives and works. Tykkä has been exhibited and collected extensively by major institutions such as 49th Venice Biennale, De Appel in Amsterdam, Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Centre d´Art Contemporain Genève, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Wellington City Gallery in New Zealand, Casino Luxembourg - Forum d'art contemporain, Musée d´art contemporain de Montréal and Collection Lambert in Avignon, France.
Unidentified Emotions Press Relase as pdf-File 261 KB
For futher infomation/image and interview, please contact Yung Ma at ma@artstatements.com or +852 2122-9657.
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Yung Ma |
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