Series of Screenings Art.mov: Video Attached. History of Contemporary Art

The screening will focus on dance in video art. Yana Nokhrina will introduce works by Factory of Found Clothes (FFC), Alexey Isaev, and Olga Tobreluts.

The screening focuses on works by FFC that explore the practice of dance. The group’s interest in dance grew out of their collaboration with choreographer Nina Gasteva. Together with Gasteva they made Dance at the Sheremetevsky Palace, Macbeth, and A Boutique Date. In Dancing with Ghosts and Secret Councils, choreography becomes a guide to the world of the dead: there, Marx and Engels waltz around in a summer forest, and young girls infiltrate political meetings to turn politicians’ gestures into play. The screening will finish with works by Olga Tobreluts and Alexey Isaev, in which the image itself acquires the quality of dance: using fractals, ornamental patterns, and multiple exposure, the artists create visionary video paintings.

Program

• Dancing with Ghosts, video art, FFC, 2000s
• Secret Councils, video art, Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya (Glyuklya), 2004
• Video performance Dance at the Sheremetebsky Palace, Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya (Glyuklya) and Nina Gasteva, 1993
• Macbeth, Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya (Glyuklya), 1994
• Film A Boutique Date, FFC, 2009
• Exploratory Laboratory #3, video art, Olga Tobreluts, 1990s
• Dance and Video, video art, Alexey Isaev, 1994

Yana Nokhrina is a film and video archivist, a researcher of experimental film and video art, film a curator, and registrar in the Garage Archive Collection media archive. She graduated in Liberal Arts and Sciences from St. Petersburg State University. She co-founded VNUTRI Festival of Experimental Amateur Film in 2022.

The screening will feature documentation of works, video art, and home recordings by Factory of Found Clothes (FFC). Yana Nokhrina will introduce viewers to the key performances and main characters of the universe created by artists Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) and Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya (Glyuklya).

FFC are known for their romantic feats. In their action The Pleasing of the Neva, the two artists and friends interacted with airspace, throwing things into the river from a helicopter as offerings; in the performance In Memory of Poor Liza they jumped off a bridge into the Winter Canal, honoring «those who have suffered from the pangs of love.»

In her article Glyuklya+Tsaplya: The Body Knows..., art historian Ekaterina Andreeva wrote: «For FFC, the meaning of performance art reveals itself in the overcoming of the self in the face of fear... and in the creation of a path for others to help them cope and discover something important within themselves, within their souls and their bodies.»

In their works, Glyuklya and Tsaplya not only stood up to the forces of nature but also sought connections with the otherworldly and the magical. Their world features characters such as androgynous creatures in hazmat suits from the projects Adventures of the Whites in Scotland, and the Pythia foretelling the future in The Magic Room.

The screening will also include home videos that blur the boundaries between everyday life and performances, and Glyuklya and Tsaplya’s early video art works. The video documentation of the action A Streetcar Named Desire, in which they occupied a tram depot, is an example of their later work.

Program

• Video documentation of the performance In Memory of Poor Liza, 1996
• Video documentation of the performance The Pleasing of the Neva, 1996< /li>
• Video for the exhibition The Blood, Sweat, and Tears of Silkworms, 1994
• Project Video Studies in the Studio, 1998
• Project Adventures of the Whites in Scotland, 1998
• Video documentation of the performance The Magic Room, 2000
• Video artwork Golden Leg, 2001
• Video documentation of the performance A Streetcar Named Desire, 2004

Yana Nokhrina is a film and video archivist, a researcher of experimental film and video art, film a curator, and registrar in the Garage Archive Collection media archive. She graduated in Liberal Arts and Sciences from St. Petersburg State University. She co-founded VNUTRI Festival of Experimental Amateur Film in 2022.