Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Presented as part of a recent group of works titled The Paradox of Healing, Rhombus for Healing No. 2 by Sandra Monterroso brings together several of the artist’s interests: the use of ritual and medicinal elements; the conciliation of Western and indigenous formal languages; and more recently, sewing as a recognition and celebration of her maternal lineage. The series as a whole and this painting in particular continue her interest in textiles as visual references and cultural tools to address her native Guatemala’s complex political and cultural histories.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Sandra Monterroso’s video performance titled Corazón del lugar del viento (Heart of the Place of the Wind) is inspired by Seis Cielo (Six Sky), the only female Mayan ruler to be represented in classical Mayan stelae (historical monuments dedicated to the record of important events). As the artist impersonates the ruler and goddess, she performs a ritual of tying stones and an offering of clothing. Seis Cielo’s ties with the lineages of the prehispanic Tikal and Dos Pilas kingdoms were essential in understanding the role of Mayan women as mothers and wives, and especially as rulers and healers.

Photography (Photography)

“When you position your hand on someone’s shoulder, your shoulders become straight and horizontal. Placing one’s hand on a stable surface helps position the shoulders and the general posture of the body.” Hashem El Madani. Hashem El Madani, a studio photographer in Saida, began working in 1948.

Photography (Photography)

“Other photographers used to send me negatives of cross-eyed people, asking me to retouch them. I used to scratch out the emulsion where the pupil is, and draw another one right next to it.” Hashem El Madani. Hashem El Madani, a studio photographer in Saida, began working in 1948.

Photography (Photography)

“These are negatives that were scratched because of a jealous husband from the Baqari family, who never let his wife out by herself. He was upset to know that she came to be photographed in my studio without telling him. He came asking for the negatives.

Photography (Photography)

“In the 1980s I started using coloured paper backdrops, one of which was yellow. You can see they never reached the floor. I used them for colour and black-and-white photography.” Hashem El Madani.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

The End of Time

Film & Video (Film & Video)

In the flash animation SpringValle_ber_girls , Petra Cortright collages together surreal scenes out of unnaturally idyllic desktop screensavers with equally unreal computer-generated women that pop in and out of the landscape. Cortright’s backgrounds are made seedy by the appearance of digitally-rendered strippers, while various layers of internet escapism collide together in an infinite loop. The dancing girls are sourced from VirtuaGirl, a software that makes footage of strippers available for download.

Photography (Photography)

“The two men were relatives and both were in the Lebanese Army.” Hashem El Madani. Hashem El Madani, a studio photographer in Saida, began working in 1948. Like all studio photographers his subjects came to him.

Photography (Photography)

“People often asked if they could pose with the Kodak advertisement where a full scale woman is featured with a camera offering Kodak rolls. They invented the poses, the gestures and situations.” Hashem El Madani. Hashem El Madani, a studio photographer in Saida, began working in 1948.

Photography (Photography)

“Films inspired people a lot. they came to perform kissing in front of a camera. In a conservative society such as Saida, people were willing to play the kiss between two people of the same sex, but very rarely between a man and a woman.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Mullican’s Stick Figure Drawings depict characters reduced to their most basic graphic representation. Glen is a simple silhouette, genderless and inspired by a found photo of a crime scene, in whom we recognize the generic sign of the universal symbol of a self-portrait. Mullican continually projects himself, sometimes physically, into the silhouette that he has created, allowing the artist to pass from one reality to another.

Photography (Photography)

“While taking the picture it was challenging to make the boys sit properly without moving. Sometimes a member of the family whould hide behind, holding the child.” Hashem El Madani. Hashem El Madani, a studio photographer in Saida, began working in 1948.

Photography (Photography)

Hashem El Madani, a studio photographer in Saida, began working in 1948. Like all studio photographers his subjects came to him. The studio was a constant flux of visitors.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

In her 2011 webcam video, Sickhands , Cortright poses before her in-computer camera, as her hands, hair, and body begin waving and rippling vertically across the screen, distorted by software effects. Capitalizing and commenting on the ubiquity of homemade video, the short film replicates with banal proximity the amateur special effects that thrive on the web. This rather cliched visual trick recalls a funhouse mirror, or, perhaps more aligned with Cortright’s frame of reference, a dream-sequence cue from after-school 90s television.

Photography (Photography)

“People often asked if they could pose with the Kodak advertisement where a full scale woman is featured with a camera offering Kodak rolls. They invented the poses, the gestures and situations.” Hashem El Madani. Hashem El Madani, a studio photographer in Saida, began working in 1948.

Photography (Photography)

“People often asked if they could pose with the Kodak advertisement where a full scale woman is featured with a camera offering Kodak rolls. They invented the poses, the gestures and situations.” Hashem El Madani. Hashem El Madani, a studio photographer in Saida, began working in 1948.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Indigenous educator and curator Sandra Benites, of the Guarani-Ñandeva people, narrates the origin myth of the bird Urutau in her native language. This nightjar stands still on a branch all day long and, at dusk, cries a low hoot resembling a human weeping. In 2013, indigenous activist José Urutau Guajajara remained on the top of a tree for 26 hours, deprived of food and water by state forces.