Manuela Mark / Group XXVI, Apr 08 - Sep 08

READYFASTERBURNSLONGER

8/21/08 to 8/24/08

MAK Center for Art and Architecture L.A. at the Schindler House, 835 North Kings Road, West Hollywood, CA 90069

Austrian artist Manuela Mark presented a video and photographs. Interested in the relationship between video/film-recording and natural perception, her work in Los Angeles explored the process of creating identity through the involvement of architecture, design and film. While in Los Angeles, Mark became aware of how people interact with specific environments in the context of their appearance. Using their bodies and certain locations as tools for performing, people create a temporary identity through mimicry or by incorporating the behaviors of fictive roles. The video related this identification process, employing the first-person narrator in a fiction. Mark’s video project was based on sound recordings extracted from the novel "Quicksand" by Nella Larsen. The text fragments contained sensual and concrete descriptions of people, rooms, furniture and fabrics, using powerful imagery and phrases. At certain times, the voice-over became the structure for the performances; the rhythms, hesitations and pauses of the reading were reflected in the movements and gestures of the figure in the video. Filmed at the Mackey Apartments, the visual performances were also very much inspired by their locale. The exhibition included photographs responding to the video. While the structure of the video was dominated by the process of reading, the photographs were concrete compositions of body, texture and the architectural structure.