36:16 minutes
Michelle Handelman’s video work Irma Vep, The Last Breath takes its inspiration from Musidora, a famous French silent film actress, and a character she played called Irma Vep, from the film Les Vampires (1915), directed by Louis Feuillade. The work uses these characters as metaphors to highlight the lives of those who live in the shadows—or feel like they do—and the anxiety they experience as marginalized figures. Musidora was a 20th-century feminist, who was known not only for acting in movies, but also for directing her own plays and films, and having secret affairs with Colette and other famous people of the time. In Handelman’s version, Feuillade’s character Irma Vep, and her real-life counterpart Musidora, is not a vampire but a member of a gang who steals jewels. They are played by Zackary Drucker, a trans woman known as an artist and television producer on the show Transparent , and Flawless Sabrina, a prominent LGBT activist, drag queen, performer, and actress. The differences of their generations, the togetherness of the characters they play in the work, and their friendship and support for each other in real life, create a complex narrative around the cultural evolution of gender. Handelman digs into the subconscious secrets of Irma Vep, as played by Drucker, by allowing viewers a peek into Irma Vep’s therapy sessions, creating a complicated narrative around the experience of living in the margins of society. As Drucker improvises her dialogue, her existence as a trans woman brings in a different perspective about living undercover and being marginalized.
Michelle Handelman’s video, installation, live performance, and photography works analyze the human sublime in terms of its excess and dullness, providing a sneak peek into a jewel thief’s therapy sessions or following the life of a famous drag queen who experiences her own narcissistic destruction due to her increasing fame. Coming of age during the AIDS crisis and Culture Wars of the 1990s, the artist exposes the complicated spaces in which queer identities exist and transform, questioning the role of gender, race, class, and sexuality. Her works narrate tales of a dark human subconsciousness, putting her spotlight on outsiders and marginalized individuals. Raising philosophical questions around human existence, her characters function to uncover human fears in relation to sexuality, death, and chaos. Her video installations produce visual and psychological sensations for the viewers, inviting them to take part in these narratives. In this way, Handelman invites the viewers to question their own existence, identity, and experiences related to survival and belonging.
From the Beginning by Rocky Cajigan consists of an assemblage painting, with accompanying sculptural objects presented on the floor...
Freehand artist Mr Doodle comes to Hong Kong on mission to ‘doodle the world’: Briton’s work on show at K11 Musea and Pearl Lam Galleries | South China Morning Post Advertisement Advertisement Art + FOLLOW Get more with my NEWS A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you Learn more British artist Sam Cox, better known as Mr Doodle, draws on a model spaceship at Hong Kong MTR station in Central, Hong Kong on November 19...
War of words over China breaks out on London graffiti wall - France 24 Skip to main content War of words over China breaks out on London graffiti wall Issued on: 09/08/2023 - 15:42 02:27 War of words over China breaks out on London graffiti wall (2023) © AFP / France 24 Video by: Juliette MONTILLY Follow Long renowned as a graffiti artist's heaven, Brick Lane in east London has found itself at the heart of a furious political debate overseas after a group of Chinese art students spray-painted Communist Party slogans over one of its walls...
This short looped-video NFT Invertebrate Interactions by Sofia Crespo aims to capture generated impressions of diatoms...
Oscar Tuazon‘s sculptural oeuvre is situated at the border of art, architecture and technology...
Winter is a film installation of multiple tenses—shot in the recent past, depicting an unknown future, unfolding (and changing) in the present of the exhibition...
The best East Asian films of 2023 | Dazed â¬…ï¸ Left Arrow *ï¸âƒ£ Asterisk â Star Option Sliders âœ‰ï¸ Mail Exit Film & TV Dazed Review 2023 From Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s long-awaited Evil Does Not Exist, to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s ‘absolute masterpiece’ Monster 12 December 2023 Text James Balmont The year 2023, now coming to a bitter end, was jam-packed with all kinds of zeitgeist-piercing movies...
ANCER Lab 03 Manila: How arts managers are surviving COVID-19 | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints Mah Jun Yi and Low Pey Sien November 22, 2021 By Wennie Yang (1,200 words, 4-minute read) Pandemic restrictions have put arts and cultural workers and institutions in a bind: choosing between sustaining their missions at times of a global pandemic or ceasing operations altogether...
Canned Laughter was Okón’s response to an invitation from Ciudad Juárez , Mexico, where artists were asked to create works based on their experience of the city...
Rudolph Schindler’s designs, part of a practice he called “Space Architecture,” marry interior with exterior and space with light...
Studios Are Loosening Their Reluctance to Send Old Shows Back to Netflix - The New York Times Media | In Search of Cash, Studios Send Old Shows Back to Netflix https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/business/media/netflix-licensed-shows.html Share full article 195 Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT For years, entertainment company executives happily licensed classic movies and television shows to Netflix...
Born in 1974, Kano, Nigeria, Otobong Nkanga lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium...
Hit Man Gurung’s series I Have to Feed Myself, My Family and My Country… addresses labor migration, a phenomenon prevalent in South Asian countries like Nepal...
Letter to a Turtledove by Dana Kavelina is a short film based on a poem written by the artist...
Conceived as the catalogue of the exhibition “L’exigence de la saudade”, this publication gathers: Essays, Interview, Artists’s notes ( in English) 48 pages, illustrations, b&w 5 euros Padmini Chettur | Maarten Visser Zamthingla Ruivah | Prajakta Potnis Zasha Colah | Sumesh Sharma Emilie Villez | Léna Monnier | Jean Bhownagary Tyeb Mehta | Nalini Malani | Judy Blum Krishna Reddy | Justin Ponmany Prabhakar Pachpute | Victorine Grataloup Yogesh Barve | Sachin Bonde | Poonam Jain Mangesh Kapse | Carla Montenegro pad.ma Amol Patil | Nikhil Raunak | Alexandre Singh...