Anabela Žigová (SK): Films // Resident Presentation

Residents & Aliens: Open Studios, Performance Evening and Film Screening

A multi-action program including performances accompanying our exhibition After the Future, OPEN STUDIOS of our Artists in Residence, and a film screening. 
Born in 1974 in Bratislava, Anabela Žigová now lives and works primarily in New York.

Anabela Žigová: Films

Her work with objects inspired by physical structures and her videoperformances gradually evolved towards the creation of film works and films. Important in this work is the process of making the film material, and its possibilities to reach out beyond the narrative, psychology, visual stereotypes, analytical way of perception and conceptual thinking. Within the documentation and presentations of this process, individual fragments become independent works of art and movies themselves are sort of a byproduct.

1. VZDOR (trt: 03:00mins., Milan - New York, 2007. Premiered at Nuit Blanche in Paris in 2007.)http://anabelazigova.net/video_vzdor.html

VZDOR* shows power of fragility in men and beauty of aggression in women.Two characters subtly reclaim what has been socially repressed and limited to the transactional dynamics and domination; further experienced as a loss of self…Those two characters act out scripted scenes that manifest from uncontrolled thought and feeling process. This was first captured in series of preparatory drawings, created over period of 6 months that were later translated into a shooting scenario of VZDOR*.
2. Melancholia says: "Follow me." (trt: 05:00mins., New York, 2004 - premiered at Exit Art Gallery, NYC)http://anabelazigova.net/film_melancholia.html

Melancholia says: Follow Me." is a 05:00 min. 16mm Black & White film transfered to video. In the film there is a woman being followed by an anonymous looking individual. We first see the woman, moving fast, close ups of her anxious face, then the stalker that we can't identify for the face is covered by hood and scarf... All of the body is camouflaged by heavy and dirty clothes. That visually recalls inner city garb... As the film continues it gets confusing: soon, though, we understand that the stalker and followed woman are the same person."Melancholia says: Follow Me." is observing the city and the anxiety in psychological terms and a purely introspective way: the originater of the terror is hiding in the persona of the victim...    

3. SALTO MORTALE (feature length documentary - excerpts of work in progress only, film is in the last phase of its completition, to be premiered in 2014 by Film Europe)

A documentary film that exposes and brings to light still-suppressed facts of the activities of the Slovakian secret police during the communist era.The film looks at the ways that people whose relatives or close friends used to collaborate with the secret police are seeking to come to terms with their past.
http://www.filmneweurope.com/news/slovakia/104365-production-slovak-doc-salto-mortale-in-postproduction/menu-id-160